By IRNA,
London : Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday that Britain’s 10,000 troops in Afghanistan could start to be withdrawn next year, but the decision will be “based on conditions on the ground.”
In an interview with the BBC, Cameron also repeated that UK soldiers are “not going to be there in five years’ time, in 2015, with combat troops or large numbers because I think it’s important to give people an end date by which we won’t be continuing in that way.”
But deputising for the prime minister in parliament, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg suggested that Cameron’s date was more of a target than a deadline.
“No timetable can be chiselled in stone, but we are absolutely determined – given how long we’ve been in Afghanistan, given that we are six months into an 18-month military strategy, embarking on a new political strategy – that we must be out in a combat role by 2015,” Clegg said.
“The prime minister has been clear, we have been clear as a coalition government, that we do not wish to see British troops in a combat role in Afghanistan by 2015,” he told MPs, adding it was “consistent” with the timetable for the Afghan forces assuming responsibility for security in 2014.
Doubts about setting a deadline was also expressed by former head of the Army, General Sir Mike Jackson, who said he was “wary” about setting dates, and that the plan to transfer power “does not equal reality”.
Jackson, who was Commander-in-Chief during the invasion of Afghanistan before becoming Chief of the General Staff just before the 2003 Iraq war, refused to say whether he felt Cameron’s 2015 target was achievable, but he acknowledged it was “ambitious”.
“There could be an element of hostage to fortune in being too pedantic about the date. I have always been wary about dates. We seek a set of conditions on the ground,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
The former army chief also said it was “always a considerable concern” that setting a date would simply encourage the Taliban to hold out until then to resurge.
Cameron, who is currently in the US, set 2015 as a target date for the end of British combat operations in Afghanistan earlier this month.
Following a meeting with Obama, he went further when asked whether the UK could emulate the US, which hopes to start withdrawing its forces from next July.
“Yes we can, but it should be based on the conditions on the ground. I mean, the faster we can transition districts and provinces to Afghan control, clearly the faster that some forces can be brought home,” he said.
But he also added: “I don’t want to raise expectations about that because that transition should be based on how well the security situation is progressing.”
Sceptics of the war have questioned both Obama’s date to start a drawdown next year with his announcement coming ahead of US mid-term elections and Cameron’s deadline for the end of combat operations being the same as the UK’s next scheduled general election.