New Zealand troops offered for UN force in Afghanistan

1:30 pm

New Zealand would like to be "helpful" to a British-led United Nations peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, Prime Minister Helen Clark told Britain today.

At a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at 10 Downing St today, Miss Clark indicated that if such a force was assembled "we will look at what role we can play.

"His response was that he thinks New Zealand has made a really very very good response from day one, over the crisis with al Qaeda and (Osama) bin Laden.

"The British would welcome New Zealand being there in any multinational force."

Military officials from Britain and other potential troop-contributing countries gather for a conference in London tomorrow to assess how many troops will be required.

A formal announcement on Britain's lead in the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force would not be made before Monday.

Mr Blair said Britain was prepared "in principle" to leading a peacekeeping force in the war-torn country but the details needed to be worked out.

It was hoped a small contingent of troops would be in place before December 22 - the date when Afghanistan's interim government led by Hamid Karzai would take over.

Miss Clark told reporters the UN was aware New Zealand and Australia were "very committed" to peacekeeping in East Timor, and would be for some time.

"But that hasn't stopped us having a number of other peacekeeping deployments," she said.

"We would envisage being able to be helpful in a multinational force in some way, we have still got to discuss exactly what that would be."

New Zealand had offered "a military component" to help to root out the al Qaeda bases from the beginning of the backlash against the September 11 attacks on the United States, she said.

Now it was looking at a small contribution to the UN force.

A spokesman for Britain's defence ministry said there would be no formal commitments made by countries at tomorrow's conference.

Officials would be looking at what sort of capabilities each nation wanted to offer.

The UN Security Council must adopt a resolution authorising the force.

Some Western diplomats have said the council could act tomorrow but a vote might be delayed until the weekend or early next week.

Security Council members -- the United States, Britain, Russia, China and France -- were continuing negotiations on the text of the resolution.

The initial force was likely to be about 1000 troops but it could grow to about 5000 troops.

Around 300 British troops were expected to form an advance guard of the peacekeeping force in Kabul by Christmas, The Times newspaper reported today.

France, Germany and Canada were also likely to provide troops along with four Muslim nations -- Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Jordan.

"Getting a stable Afghanistan now will remove one of the sources of tension in the Middle East which has contributed to the breeding of the terrorism crisis," Miss Clark said.

"For the same reason the Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs to be resolved very very urgently, and in the medium term to get the UN weapons inspectors back into Iraq and remove that as an issue would be very desirable as well."

Miss Clark was going in to meet Mr Blair as Northern Ireland First Minister David Trimble and Deputy First Minister Mark Durkan ended their first visit to No 10 since their election.

Mr Trimble told reporters he had learned Miss Clark had Irish ancestors.

"On that basis we had a very long and cheerful conversation," he said.

Miss Clark was inside 10 Downing St for much longer than the 10 minutes allocated.

It was the first time Miss Clark and Mr Blair had met since September last year.

- NZPA

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