UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — The Security Council on Thursday unanimously agreed to beef up the UN mission in Afghanistan to improve coordination with NATO-led forces and Kabul to fight resurgent Taliban extremists.
The 15-member body approved an Italian-drafted resolution that extended the mandate of the UN mission known as UNAMA until March 2009.
UNAMA and its new head, special envoy for Afghanistan Kai Eide of Norway, will lead international civilian efforts to promote "more coherent support by the international community to the Afghan government."
Under Resolution 1806, these efforts will notably focus on fighting drug trafficking, as well as reconstruction and development.
The UN mission will also "strengthen the cooperation with" the 40-nation NATO-led International Security Assistance Force "at all levels and throughout the country."
UN chief Ban Ki-moon appointed Eide as his new special envoy to the country early this month after Afghan President Hamid Karzai rejected his first choice, British politician Paddy Ashdown.
Eide's predecessor, Tom Koenigs of Germany, who stepped down at the end of December, was widely seen as lacking the necessary clout to play this coordinating role.
The United States, Britain and France immediately hailed the adoption of the resolution.
The Afghan-born US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, reaffirmed in a New York Times article that Washington "is fully behind the United Nations in its mission in Afghanistan."
"Success in Afghanistan will be a major step in helping to create security, stability and progress in the broader Middle East, which is the defining challenge of our time," he wrote.
His British counterpart, John Sawers, had high praise for Eide, describing him as a "skilled and effective diplomat."
And he said the resolution "set very clear priorities to bring better coherence" to the international military-civilian coordination in Afghanistan.
"We will be very supportive of the action of the new special representative, Kai Eide," French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert told reporters. "France is very committed to that aim."
Ripert noted that French President Nicolas Sarkozy had restated his determination to keep French troops in Afghanistan and reinforce their presence.
"We will certainly translate that into act at the NATO summit in Bucharest," scheduled for April 2 to 4, he added.
With some 1,600 French soldiers deployed in Afghanistan as part of the larger NATO-led force, Paris has suggested it might respond to US calls for allies to send reinforcements to Afghanistan's volatile south.
ISAF has around 43,000 soldiers battling insurgents led by the extremist Taliban and running 25 reconstruction teams around the country.
Another US-dominated force of about 20,000 soldiers is also battling militants linked to the Taliban insurgency as well as other rebel outfits that carry out attacks on the Afghan government and its allies.
Last year, more than 8,000 people were killed in stepped-up attacks by the Taliban, which ruled the country from 1996 until late 2001, when they were ousted by US-led forces.
In a related development, US Vice President Dick Cheney met Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul Thursday and the two men urged NATO to step up efforts to crush Afghan extremists and rebuild the war-torn country.
The challenge posed by the Taliban will figure prominently at the NATO summit where Washington hopes alliance members will increase troops and resources, especially to Afghanistan's south where fighting is the most fierce.
Ripert also recalled that France plans to host a conference in Paris in June to review implementation of the five-year reconstruction plan for Afghanistan.
The resolution further directs UNAMA to bolster and expand its presence throughout Afghanistan to promote implementation of the five-year international Compact adopted in 2006 to coordinate financial and military support to Afghanistan.
Eide was also tasked with improving civil-military coordination "in support of an Afghan-led development and stabilization process" and extend technical aid for the electoral process through the Afghan Independent Electoral Commission.
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