Government ponders Afghanistan confusion

Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb (Nat. Coalition Party) says that the government has not yet decided whether or not to give Parliament any additional reports on the timing of the withdrawal of a contingent of Finnish crisis management forces from Afghanistan, and on a break in communications linked with the schedule.
      There was confusion last week among foreign and security policy leaders on whether or not the 86 Finnish soldiers deployed in Afghanistan to help secure that country’s presidential election in late August would remain for the second round of voting on November 7th. President Tarja Halonen had been under the impression that the deployment would be extended past that date. However, it proved impossible to extend the peacekeepers’ service contracts beyond the end of October.
     
Opposition Social Democratic Party Chairwoman, MP Jutta Urpilainen, has called for a report from the Prime Minister on the withdrawal, which she saw as premature from the point of view of the fulfilment of the peacekeepers’ mission.
      In her Friday statement, Urpilainen said that she suspects that Minister of Defence Jyri Häkämies (Nat. Coalition Party) had exceeded his authority in the matter.
      Parliamentary defence committee chairman Juha Korkeaoja (Centre) said on Tuesday in an interview with the newspaper Aamulehti that the Defence Staff reminded the Ministry of Defence about the forces’ homecoming date already in September.
      In the interview, Korkeaoja also criticised the actions of Foreign Minister Stubb, saying that he should have discussed the matter with President Halonen when the two spent hours on the same plane during a recent visit to Egypt and Syria.
     
Stubb, who was in Luxembourg on Tuesday taking part in a meeting of EU ministers, said that the Afghan forces did not come up during the flights, because at that time, he and the President were sitting with their “Mideast hats on”.
      “As I said during the weekend, foreign policy is teamwork. Now it is important to look at the whole palette, and what we can learn from it”, he said.
      Stubb said that until the last moment, he had held on to hopes that the Finnish forces could stay in Afghanistan past the second round of voting.
      The peacekeepers will return to Finland late on Wednesday.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Defence Forces never considered extension of Afghanistan mandate (22.10.2009)
  Additional Finnish forces to be withdrawn from Afghanistan before election runoff (21.10.2009)
  Foreign Minister Stubb apologises to Finnish peacekeepers (26.10.2009)
  Prime Minister promises clarification of confusion over Afghanistan (23.10.2009)