'Soft' assistance for Afghanistan

The foreign minister-level international conference in Kabul on Thursday has placed the war-torn country in the spotlight again, especially as NATO has announced the withdrawal of troops by 2014 and the just-convened Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit has announced it will play a bigger role in maintaining stability in the region.

There is widespread concern about where Afghanistan is heading; and that concern is absolutely right.

For the past decade, although the international community has invested heavily in its reconstruction, security issues in Afghanistan have not improved much. There are frequent terrorist attacks, drug crimes, armed conflicts between ethic tribes and clans. All these problems tell us how far the country still has to go before it can be called secure.