Kabul, Dec 8 (DPA) US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan would take “several years” as Afghan forces needed to be strengthened by recruiting more soldiers and police to take charge of the country’s security.
Gates, who arrived in Kabul on a surprise visit Tuesday morning to discuss with Afghan leaders the new strategy set by President Barack Obama for Afghanistan, said that his country was committed to the war-torn nation for the long haul.

Obama has announced plans to send another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan on top of the 68,000 US soldiers already stationed there, and set the summer of 2011 as a start date for the US forces’ withdrawal.

“We expect that this is a several years’ process, whether it is three years, two years or four years I think it remains to be seen,” Gates told a joint press conference with President Hamid Karzai.

Gates said that the security transition to Afghan forces from the NATO-led troops would take place province by province as the number of Afghan security forces grew to take on the Taliban insurgents.

“Our hope is that over time we will see a changing balance in our relationship, in which the security component diminishes as the security situation improves and the rest of the relationship, an economic relationship and development relationship, becomes the profound element and connection between the two countries,” the defence secretary said.

Karzai said that his country’s forces would be able to lead the fight in the dangerous regions of the country in two years and would be ready to take overall security responsibility in five years.

The president, however, said that his country would need NATO and US financial aid for its forces for up to two decades before it can sustain them on its own.