Edinburgh meeting makes NATO action plan for Afghanistan more vivid

KABUL, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- After its Parliamentary Assembly's meeting in Edinburgh, NATO seems to have moved further closer to a final decision on troops surge in Afghanistan.

Though no formal statement was issued at the end of the meeting, the speeches of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband manifested what is on the mind of the alliance leaders.

The five-day gathering, attended by hundreds of parliamentarians from the 28 member-countries, ended on Tuesday. Non-member countries - including South Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Russia - also attended the meeting.

Although the meeting pondered over a host of issues, particularly the future challenges to the military alliance, yet the focal point remained Afghanistan.

In his keynote address, Rasmussen encouraged NATO and partner governments 'to make more military resources available,' in particular for the NATO Training Mission Afghanistan (NTM-A).

He also called on allies and partners to see what more they can do on the civilian side.

"Extra military resources from NATO and its partners in ISAF are not a panacea," he said.

"More also needs to be done on the civilian side to boost the Afghan government's own capacity."

The speech by British Foreign Secretary was more elaborate and unfurled a three-point agenda of his government for Afghanistan.

These points included integration of insurgent Taliban into the Afghan national mainstream, building the capacity of the Afghan government to handle the situation and give up reliance on foreign forces, and enlisting the support of neighboring countries, particularly Pakistan to restore peace in Afghanistan.

"Britain wants to find a way to allow the vast majority of Taliban fighters who are not Islamic extremists to reintegrate into Afghan society," he said in his address on the last day of the five-day meeting.

He said that for reintegrating Taliban fighters into Afghan society, Britain and her partners needed to reassure Afghan civilians that they faced a stable future.

Miliband said that the Afghan insurgency was not a 'monolith' and that Britain and her allies needed to show Taliban fighters that there was 'a route back into society'.