Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan attended the London Conference on Afghanistan on January 28, which brought together United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, foreign ministers of some 70 countries and officials of international organizations.

Hailing the Afghan government’s goal to take charge of its own national security within the next five years, the international community agreed to provide support needed to increase the number of troops and police officers to 300,000 by October 2011 from the current 180,000.

Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan is greeted by Chris Bryant, British Parliamentary Under-
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at the Afghanistan Conference in London on January 28, 2010. The participants also noted with satisfaction the  Afghan government’s efforts toward political
reconciliation aimed at bringing the Taliban back to society, in addition to work to strengthen its own security capabilities. 

A US$500 million reconciliation fund will be established to support such work, to which  the participating countries were asked to contribute.  

The participants of the meeting took note of the Afghan government’s endeavors for economic development and governance improvement, and, in particular, the recent write-off of Afghanistan’s US$1.6 billion foreign debt by the international community.

Minister Yu explained that in an effort to help Afghanistan improve its governance, the Korean government will continue to invite Afghan public officials to the country for public-service training and explore ways that our provincial reconstruction team can support the construction of administrative infrastructure. The Korean government has invited some 700 Afghan public officials to training programs since 2002. He also spoke of the Korean government’s intention to contribute to the envisaged reconciliation fund designed to help the Taliban return to society.