Defence minister accepts resistance to expanding Afghan mission

Defence minister Hans Hillen has accepted that there is not majority support in parliament for expanding the current police training mission in Afghanistan, news agency ANP reported on Monday afternoon.


The government hoped to expand the mission to include training border police – as requested by Nato. However, the left-wing green party GroenLinks has refused to back the plan. It will only support training civilian police and the Afghan border officials have a fighting role.
GroenLinks’ support was crucial to get the police training mission off the ground last year, when Labour dropped its support.
Partners
‘It is a fact, we will not have a majority,’ Hillen was quoted as saying. ‘We will let our partners know this.’
The Netherlands sent 545 soldiers and training experts to Kunduz last year to train local police officers. But the mission, which replaced Dutch military efforts in Afghanistan, has been dogged by claims there is not enough to do.
Last November, the Volkskrant reported the mission has cost €105m so far, and 189 Afghan police officers have gone or are going through the training programme.

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