European Commission to open Kabul office

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.