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AFPBritain to stay engaged in Afghanistan for 'decades' 11 minutes ago
LONDON (AFP) - Britain will need to stay involved in Afghanistan for "decades" to help restore stability, London's ambassador in Kabul said Wednesday.
In an interview with BBC radio, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles put greater stress on Britain maintaining a "long-term development" presence rather than a military one.
"I wouldn't say my picture is gloomy, I would say it's realistic," Cowper-Coles said. "It's a marathon rather than a sprint, We should be thinking in terms of decades."
"We're standing up a country that is near the bottom of the world development index, a country that has suffered from 30 years of war, with an insurgency spreading across the Pashtun belt."
He said Britain, with 5,200 troops in Afghanistan as part of a NATO-led force, was waging a winnable counter-insurgency war that resembled those it had fought before in Malaya and Northern Ireland.
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