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NATO's plan: Ignore corruption, occupy Afghanistan for decades
NATO has agreed on its long-awaited road map for the future of Afghanistan amid warnings that the process risks tolerating corruption and the power of the warlords for the sake of security.
The Alliance's summit in the Estonian capital ended last night without the details of the framework for a handover of security to President Hamid Karzai's forces being made public. The Independent has learned, however, that an area will be deemed ready for transfer if serious violence has been in abeyance for a period of time, if there is access to power by different ethnic and tribal elements and if the conditions are present for development projects taking place in relative safety.
According to senior diplomatic sources, clusters of provinces, rather than individual ones, will be transferred to "provide critical mass" able to withstand the Taliban. The decisions on the locations for handover and the time-frame involved will be made at a NATO conference later this year after talks between Western and Afghan government officials.