NATO troops may stay in Afghanistan after 2014, the director of the NATO information bureau in Moscow, Robert Pszel, said on Wednesday.
“NATO’s Afghanistan exit strategy is based on the withdrawal of the International Security Assistance Force [ISAF] from the country in 2014 after power is transferred to Afghans,” Pszel said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio.
“But it does not mean we will wash our hands by that moment,” he said, speaking in Russian.
NATO-led ISAF plans to hand over responsibility for security in Afghanistan to the Afghan leadership by the end of 2014, as decided at the 2010 NATO summit in Lisbon.
The date is yet to be approved at the forthcoming NATO summit in Chicago in May.
