U N I T E D  N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)
AFGHANISTAN: European Commission to open Kabul office
17 January 2002


ISLAMABAD, 17 January (IRIN) - The European Commission (EC) announced on
Wednesday it would open an office in the Afghan capital Kabul next month
to monitor reconstruction and aid programmes. "We want to be a part of the
reconstruction of Afghanistan and we hope to have our office open sometime
in February," Pedro Martinez, Deputy Head of the European Commission in
Pakistan, told IRIN on Thursday.

"The EC's special representative for the Reconstruction of Afghanistan,
Amir Naqvi, is currently in Kabul sourcing an office and infrastructure,"
Martinez added.

The office would monitor the political situation in the war-ravaged
country and provide "optimal coordination" with the European Union's (EU)
special representative for Afghanistan, Klaus-Peter Klaiber, a spokesman
for External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten told AFP on Wednesday.

Martinez said that the existing EC office in Peshawar, in Pakistan's North
West Frontier Province (NWFP) had been monitoring work funded by the EC in
Afghanistan and that the new Kabul office would gradually assume this
function.

The commission's humanitarian assistance branch ECHO already has an office
operating in Kabul. A commission meeting in Brussels on Tuesday touched on
the question of financing Afghan reconstruction aid, which, said a
spokesman, "should be substantial" and allow for a commitment over several
years.

He said talks on Afghan aid were underway with the budgetary authority of
the European Parliament and the European Council, and that Patten was to
participate in an Afghan donors conference in Tokyo next week.

At an EU summit in Laeken, Belgium, last month, Commission President
Romano Prodi said the Tokyo conference would probably seek an EU
contribution of some US$ 440.6 million a year.


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