Enlarge imageBy Adrian Croft
LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown will signal a tougher stance towards Afghan President Hamid Karzai Friday, saying international support for him depends on progress on security and fighting corruption.
In a speech later Friday, Brown will also defend Britain's strategy in Afghanistan after the killing of five British soldiers by an Afghan policeman this week led to calls at home for Britain to pull out its 9,000 troops.
Public support for the war in Britain has been eroded by rising military losses -- 229 British soldiers have now died there since 2001 -- and by the controversy over Karzai's re-election after a vote tainted by fraud.
Continuing loss of British lives in Afghanistan could damage the Labour Party in an election he must call by next June and which the Conservatives are favourites to win.
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In the speech, Brown will attempt to reassure critics that he will demand progress from Karzai against key benchmarks.
"He (Karzai) needs a contract with the Afghan people; a contract against which Afghans, as well as the international community, can judge his success," he will say, according to excerpts of his speech released in advance.
"International support depends on the scale of his ambition and the degree of his achievement in five key areas: security, governance, reconciliation, economic development and engagement with Afghanistan's neighbours," he will say.
POLITICAL SETTLEMENT
A government source said Brown wanted Karzai to help meet a target of recruiting 134,000 Afghan troops by the end of 2010, to lead the fight against corruption, and to bring moderate members of the insurgency back into the political mainstream.
"We will look to Karzai to lead an inclusive political settlement," the source said.
More than a quarter of Karzai's votes in the August 20 first round were thrown out after a fraud investigation.
He was declared the winner after his only opponent withdrew from a planned second round, saying there were not enough safeguards against fraud.
Brown will signal no change in the strategy he believes Britain and other allies must pursue in Afghanistan -- expanding training of Afghan security forces so they can eventually take over responsibilities from foreign forces.
"When the main terrorist threat facing Britain emanates from Afghanistan and Pakistan ... we cannot, must not, and will not walk away," Brown will say.
The international coalition that has sent forces to Afghanistan must stick together, Brown will say. "In the end we will succeed or fail together."
Brown will say British troops are in Afghanistan to protect Britain and the rest of the world from terrorism.
While military action in Afghanistan and pressure in Pakistan were suppressing al Qaeda, "we know that they continue to train and plot attacks on Britain from the region," he will say.
Paddy Ashdown, the former U.N. representative for Bosnia and once tipped for a similar job in Afghanistan, wrote in the Times Thursday that Brown's government had "completely failed both to make a cogent case for this war or to convince us that it has a strategy worthy of the sacrifices being made."
(Editing by Alison Williams)
