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NATO Chief Insists on Fight Against Corruption in Afghan Security Institutions
In a special Interview with Ariana News on Friday, Jens Stoltenberg said: “It is extremely important to fight terrorism and therefore, welcome the very strong commitment by the National Unity Government, by President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah to fight corruption and I welcome also the establishment of anti corruption center which will be an important tool to address the big problem of corruption which we have to fight and address,” Stoltenberg said.
“Corruption is really really negative for the capacity of Afghan army and of course in long-run undermines the willingness of the international community to provide financial support.”
In response to a question on NATO’s role in combat against Islamic State in Afghanistan, Stoltenberg said that NATO will continue to train, enable and support the Afghan security forces to fight terrorist groups in their country.
“What NATO does is that we are training, enabling and supporting the Afghan forces to fight terrorist groups in Afghanistan, so have seen that the Afghan forces are very professional, dedicated and have been able to attack the terrorist groups including ISIS several times.”
Despite IS presence has been reduced in Afghanistan, the NATO chief said that they are still taking the militant group “very seriously” and therefore, they are continuing to support Afghan forces.
He further said NATO will focus on further strengthening the Afghan air forces which is according to him a key capacity/capability in the fight against the Taliban and the terrorist groups in Afghanistan.
“We are also focusing on strengthening further the special operational forces, they have proven extremely valuable and important in Afghanistan, so we are going to help to train and educate more special operational forces that is actually started already,”
“we are also focusing on the leadership, strengthening the military academies to improve command, control and leadership in the Afghan army which includes the fight against corruption.”