The commander of foreign peacekeepers in Afghanistan has called for the demilitarisation of the capital, as the country prepares to launch an ambitious plan to disarm 100,000 factional fighters.
Lieutenant-General Goetz Gliemeroth, German commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), also said that better security in the provinces was vital to maintaining security in the capital.
"ISAF definitely asks for a demilitarised city of Kabul. That means ISAF strongly supports the removal of heavy weapons from the city of Kabul out to cantonment sites on its outer limits," Lt. Gliemeroth told a news conference.
He said the demilitarisation of Kabul was part of Afghanistan's 2001 Bonn peace agreement that brought to power the coalition government of President Hamid Karzai after a U.S.-led force toppled the fundamentalist Taliban regime.
Since then thousands of fighters loyal to Defence Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim, whose Northern Alliance faction forms the backbone of Karzai's government, have been stationed in Kabul along with their heavy arms.
Lt Gliemeroth said there was no need to keep so many tanks and weapons in Kabul, which was patrolled by 5,500 ISAF troops under a U.N. mandate.
His appeal came as Afghanistan begins a pilot project to disarm, reintegrate and demobilise factional fighters seen as the biggest obstacle to efforts to extend central government rule beyond the capital.
The launch of the U.N.-backed drive, which is mainly funded by Japan, comes after the United Nations earlier this month broadened ISAF's mandate to allow it to be deployed outside Kabul for the first time.