Police training in Afghanistan. “After nearly nine years of war, senior U.S. and Afghan officials said they are essentially starting from scratch”, the Washington Post reports:
U.S. and Afghan officials are beginning a major overhaul of the Afghan police with the goal of cleaning up a force whose recent history of corruption has undermined confidence in the Kabul government and fueled the insurgency. “We weren’t doing it right,” said Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who oversees the NATO training effort in Afghanistan. “The most important thing is to recruit and then train police,” he said, emphasizing the steps necessary before any deployment. “It is still beyond my comprehension that we weren’t doing that.” (…)
“If we don’t get the police fixed, we’ll never change the dynamics in the country,” Caldwell said. “No matter how well we do clearing and holding, we will never build on that progress and sustain it without a police force. We have to get this right.” He called the training effort “the greatest challenge” facing U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
EU Parliament calls for release of kidnapped Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. From the press statement:
MEPs demand the “immediate release” of Sergeant Shalit. They also call upon Hamas to grant Sergeant Shalit rights and privileges pursuant to the Geneva Convention. Deploring “the continued disregard for Sergeant Shalit’s basic human rights and the fact that his family and the Israeli and French authorities have been prevented from obtaining information regarding his well-being”, the resolution urges Hamas “to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Sergeant Shalit without delay, and to permit him to communicate with his family” in accordance with the Convention.
More broadly, the resolution stresses the importance of progress towards a two-state solution and the relaunching of proximity negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and says that “mutual trust-building measures by all sides, including a significant release of Palestinian prisoners, may help to create a constructive atmosphere leading to the release of Sergeant Shalit”.
The text of the resolution is available here; Haaretz has some background.
Will Yanukovych be tough on Russia? The new Ukrainian president, who has been labeled “pro-Russian” in Western media, will resist Russian pressure on economic matters, Pavel Korduban says in the Eurasia Daily Monitor:
Viktor Yanukovych’s first visit to Russia as Ukrainian president on March 5 showed that he is no more prone to making concessions to Moscow than any of his predecessors. Yanukovych quickly came to an agreement with Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, and Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, on humanitarian issues, but that was natural, as Yanukovych and his voters in east and south Ukraine share with Russia the same post-Soviet mentality and share views on their common history. However, on economic matters, the Russian duumvirate will have to brace themselves for tough negotiations with Yanukovych on matters ranging from gas to customs regulations. (…)
Unlike Yushchenko, who paid his first foreign visit to Moscow in 2005, Yanukovych first traveled to Brussels to meet with EU officials on March 1. In response, Moscow reportedly considered lowering the status of his visit from official to working (Den, March 4). Yanukovych tried to downplay this, saying that “all roads lead to Moscow,” and that his choice of Brussels simply reflected it being the first invitation (UNIAN, March 5). This was not a comfortable start with a strong neighbor that easily takes offence.
For the opposite view see Taras Kuzio’s op-ed in the Kyiv Post: Yanukovych’s radical march to Moscow.
Meanwhile Yanukovich has been able to form a government, as the NY Times reports.
Obama’s belief. The US President’s National Security Council chief of staff, Denis McDonough, is “perhaps Obama’s closest foreign policy advisor”, says Laura Rozen on her Politico blog. McDonough is also member of Obama’s “spiritual cabinet” — a circle of Baptists, mainline Protestants, Catholics, Muslims and Jews that regularly meets with the President for prayer and spiritual and moral discussion. Rozen quotes an interview in which McDonough talks about Obama’s foreign policy convictions:
Obama’s foreign policy is informed by the Catholic concept of the common good, McDonough tells Religion News Service. “‘It’s a general posture of seeking engagement to find mutual interests, but also realizes that there is real evil in the world that we must confront,’ he said in an interview at his West Wing office. ‘The president also recognizes that we are strongest when we work together with our allies.’”
EAS structure and the top personnel. The EU Observer has some details about Catherine Ashton’s proposal for the set-up of the EU’s new diplomatic service and about the starting competition over top posts in it: here.
Europe’s standing in the world. The Economist’s Charlemagne has a profile of the new European Council President Herman Van Rompuy (upbeat) and a reflection about the EU’s soft power (downbeat).
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