Check against delivery

President Karzai,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great honor and pleasure for me to welcome all of you to Oslo and to the annual meeting of the Afghanistan Support Group. As hosts we are delighted that you have conquered the elements and joined us at this rather bleak time of year at 60 degrees North. We are proud to have with us such an outstanding delegation from the country that is the center of the ASG’s attention. You bring the hope of a new Afghanistan, an Afghanistan that embodies the aspirations of its long-suffering people and its numerous and dedicated friends around the world.

Many friends of Afghanistan are gathered here today. We have come to demonstrate our will to continue our commitment to assisting your country in its historic undertaking. We realize that your difficult task still requires our support, and that you need it now.

The fragility of the situation is clear to all of us. We receive daily reminders of the urgent need for continued and determined efforts. We are engaged in a struggle to overcome the forces of the past and to fulfil the promises of the future.

The window of opportunity that opened up about a year ago gave new impetus to the Afghanistan Support Group. Before that the ASG had never really had a chance to emphasize the longer-term perspectives of its mission. Due to the circumstances, immediate humanitarian requirements took most of our attention. Moreover, we lacked a legitimate Afghan partner with whom to plan for the future. In fact, the lack of such a partner was the main reason for the ASG’s existence in the first place.

The Bonn Agreement changed the situation. The international community now has an Afghan partner, thus enabling it to have a longer-term perspective on its efforts in Afghanistan. Of course, during the Norwegian ASG Chairmanship this year, we have still had to place immediate concerns at the top of our agenda. But now the time has come to put more emphasis on longer-term assistance. The ASG members support greater Afghan involvement in the recovery and reconstruction effort, now that Afghanistan has a legitimate government.

One objective of the Norwegian ASG Chairmanship has been to build support for a more concerted international effort to assist Afghanistan. Considerable progress has been made in this regard. The Immediate and Transitional Assistance Program, ITAP, provided important lessons, which have been passed on to the Transitional Assistance Program for Afghanistan 2003, TAPA. We are very much looking forward to the launch of the TAPA later this afternoon.

Both the development of the two assistance programs and the day-to-day cooperation between the Afghan authorities and the representatives of the international community have been challenging in many ways. Finding the right balance between local ownership and international involvement is not always easy.

In a genuine partnership we must be guided by our common overriding objectives. A peaceful, truly democratic and prosperous Afghanistan will require all the goodwill and resources that the donor community, the United Nations, other international organizations, NGOs and the neighboring states can muster – not to mention the sacrifices, hard work, patience, courage, and open-mindedness that will be demanded of the Afghan people.

The obligations taken on by the Afghans under the Bonn Agreement made it possible for the donor community to make substantial pledges in Tokyo last January. We will take stock of these pledges today and tomorrow. I hope and believe that we will come to the same conclusion as we did regarding the road map for the Bonn Agreement – so far, so good.

I look forward to numerous statements of political and financial support that will testify to our good intentions and ability to translate our commitment into reality. Tomorrow’s discussions will give us further guidance as to where our priorities should lie.

By the end of tomorrow’s meeting, we should also be prepared to deal with the issue of the future institutional framework for coordination of international assistance to Afghanistan.

The Afghanistan Support Group, as such, has never worked for recognition, but sought to do work worthy of recognition. In spite of its informal structure, it has to some extent been institutionalized in the form of regular meetings, for many years in Islamabad and during the past year in Kabul, as well as an annual meeting in the capital of the chair. The ASG has created valuable networks that have been actively used between meetings, particularly since the demise of the Taliban regime.

The role of the Afghanistan Support Group will be assumed by a consultative structure that will include responsibility for donor coordination together with the Afghan government. It will also consolidate resource mobilization for all assistance. I take it that during our formal and informal meetings today and tomorrow we will discuss this basic model in further detail.

A new consultative structure means that you are now attending the very last annual meeting of the ASG. Still, I think it will be necessary to maintain a capability for focusing donor attention and mobilizing resources as required for humanitarian needs. Such a mechanism will be essential for monitoring the humanitarian situation through the coming winter and into the spring, and especially for ensuring that food and shelter needs are met, until humanitarian concerns can be fully integrated into the new consultative structure. We are grateful for the role of Japan in this regard.

I would like to conclude my introductory remarks with the hope that the discussions of the next two days are a success and a worthy finale to the work of the Afghanistan Support Group in the shape we know it. This meeting should serve to strengthen the partnership between the international community and Afghanistan.

I now give the floor to H.E. Mr. Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan.