Mohammadi to attend Brussels meeting

BRUSSELS (Pajhwok): Defence Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi is expected to arrive here to join his NATO counterparts for a two-day meeting later this week.

Centered on Ukraine, the urgent meeting starting on Wednesday at the NATO headquarters in the Belgium capital would also discuss the situation in Afghanistan, an alliance official told Pajhwok Afghan News.

Besides NATO defence ministers, ISAF commander in Afghanistan Gen. Joseph F. Dunford would also be attending the meeting, the official said.

Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi confirmed to Pajhwok the planned participation of Mohammadi in the meeting, but gave no further details.

On the first day, participants will confer on issues relating to the alliance and they will discuss Afghanistan the next day.

The source in Brussels said the ministers would confer on the training of Afghan forces, security transition and possibly the April presidential elections.

To cover the meeting, representatives of many Afghan media outlets, including Pajhwok, are in Brussels, where NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is expected to give Afghan journalists exclusive interviews.

The meeting comes amid ongoing negotiations between Afghan and NATO officials over a future Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that would allow foreign soldiers to continue training Afghan forces.

President Hamid Karzai has assigned his security team, National Security Council, to reach a decision on SOFA as soon as possible.

ma