MELBOURNE, Apr 19: Soon after announcing pulling out its troops from Afghanistan early next year, Australia assured the United States that it has not altered its timetable on withdrawal from the war-torn country.
A informal US query was made at senior officials level following reports of Australia expediating its timeline for pulling a majority of its troops out by 2013, according to The Age newspaper today.
In a speech in Canberra on Tuesday, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Australian troops would begin pulling out from Afghanistan this year and most would be home by the end of 2013, – a year earlier than the proposed 2014 date.
Australia has some 1,550 troops serving in Afghanistan, mainly in the Oruzgan region. Since 2001, a total of 32 Australian soldiers have been killed in the country.
“What drives the timetable is the assessment by ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) and then by the Afghan government of transition, the right moment to enter transition and that is based on an assessment of the growing capability of the Afghan National Security Forces,” she said.
“This is a war with a purpose, this is a war with an end,” Gillard said, adding the 32 Australian soldiers who had lost their lives in the war had not died in vain.
She said the decade-long war had helped quash international terrorism after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US.
According to media reports, Gillard also brushed aside suggestions that timing of the early withdrawal announcement was linked to the US election in November.
She has also agreed to provide a confidential briefing to the Opposition’s acting Defence spokesman George Brandis on the reasons for bringing forward the exit after he suggested the timing could be linked to the Australian election. (PTI)
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