A top European Union official painted a bleak picture of the conflict in Afghanistan, and said Friday that the Georgian president's "impetuous temperament" had contributed to sparking the conflict with Russia.
Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European Union's foreign affairs commissioner, acknowledged that Taliban fighters have made significant military gains in recent months nearly seven years after an American-led invasion ousted the hard-line Islamic regime.
Over the past 18 months, the fighting has spread from the Taliban's traditional strongholds in the south and east to other regions of the country. The rebels also have made inroads into the districts surrounding the capital, Kabul. The U.S. and NATO have responded by pouring thousands of new troops into the country.
"We have seen that unfortunately the insurgency has come back," Ferrero-Waldner told a business forum on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
"Now some of the (troop-contributing) countries are going all to the south," she said. "But what about the north, the north is falling apart again."
Thousands of European soldiers, including German, Italian and Spanish troops, are serving in the north and west of Afghanistan as part of its international force. NATO commanders say their previously calm sectors have seen a spate of attacks in the past year.
Some European contingents such as those of the Netherlands, France and Denmark are also engaged in fighting in the embattled south, alongside thousands of U.S. troops.
"We have to be careful to consolidate the north ... we have a significant stake there," Ferrero-Waldner said.
In Iraq, the EU has donated 900 million euros in humanitarian aid since the war started in 2003, she said.
"Now we have to start switching to capacity building because we see of course that the Iraqi administration is not fit. What is necessary is to help them," she said.
She said the EU was interested in achieving stability in Iraq partly because it wanted to import natural gas that could be piped to the West through the so-called Nabucco pipeline, which would deliver gas from Turkmenistan and other Central Asian and Caspian countries westward through Turkey while bypassing Russia.
The need for Europe to find alternatives to Russian oil and gas imports has become particularly acute since the brief war between Russian and Georgia last August.
At an emergency summit on the Georgia conflict earlier this month, EU leaders called for a study into how the 27-nation body can find alternative energy sources to diminish growing dependence on Russia, which currently supplies a third of EU oil imports and more than 40 percent of its natural gas imports.
EU leaders backed Georgia in demanding the withdrawal of Russian occupying forces. But many remain skeptical about Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, whose decision to attack the breakaway enclave of South Ossetia some regard as rash and provocative.
"The Russians are now in an assertive mood," Ferrero-Waldner said. "And of course we know President Saakashvili, he is an impetuous temperament (and) the Russians used this as a fantastic pretext" to retaliate.
