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Afghanistan

I am extremely grateful not only for the content of the right hon. Gentleman's response, but for its tone, and I am very glad that the Government were able to facilitate a successful visit to Afghanistan. It is fair to say that we are lucky in this country, because unlike some countries involved in the international coalition, we have a generally unified political position, from which we can give support to operations and to the morale of our armed forces. I am very grateful to the Opposition for that. On security, the right hon. Gentleman is right that there are small pockets in the north and east where we continue to see trouble—and in some cases exacerbated trouble—but Afghanistan is still most violent in the south, which is where we face the greatest violence from the insurgency. I had the opportunity on my last visit to go to regional command north to discuss the situation with General Fritz. I went there from Helmand, so being able to go out and walk freely in the streets, visit a university and do a small press conference, was quite a contrast. We need to be clear that the difference across Afghanistan is huge. We tend to look at Helmand as the typical experience and extrapolate from it, but we need to try to remember that there is a wider Afghanistan too. It is clear that the Afghan local police will supplement the ANSF. It is also clear that the Government in Afghanistan recognise the need for a bottom-up as well as a top-down approach to policing, and the need to supplement the ANSF where required. If I may say so, the right hon. Gentleman perhaps got his figures mixed up, because the southern Pashtuns are better represented in the Afghan national police than in the Afghan national army, but everybody is aware of that problem. On the political settlement, all of us, and especially those who have visited Afghanistan recently, have recognised that we are moving into a settlement that is based on the political space and not just on the military space. It has always been the case that both will be required. It is also worth pointing out that we cannot expect a clean-cut settlement, to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded. The settlement will be Afghan-based, Afghan-focused and Afghan-dependent, and it is unlikely to be anything other than messy to those who look at it from the outside. However, we have always said that we need to look both to those who are reconcilable to the Afghan constitution and the concept of democratic government, and to those who are irreconcilable and who need to be dealt with by military means. Finally, the right hon. Gentleman made an important point on the concept of a regional settlement. Too often, the discussion on Afghanistan is in terms that it is some sort of vacuum, but we must consider its northern neighbours, the relationship with Pakistan, the complex interaction between Pakistan and India, and increasingly, the relationship between Pakistan and China. We need to understand all that in the context of the settlement, and the long-term implications of the settlement in the region. I discussed some of those issues with General Kayani and President Karzai only a week and a half ago. There is an increasing awareness among Afghanistan's neighbours that the countries surrounding them need to play a constructive role in Afghanistan if any of the gains for which so many sacrifices have been made are to be sustainable.