NATO Funding Has Done Little to Mitigate US Abandonment of Afghanistan

Washington's strategy for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan has left the country without the ability to safeguard peace and security; the threat of terrorism has yet to be resolved, Afghan member of parliament Ali Amini told Sputnik.

In an interview with Sputnik, Afghan MP Ali Amini slammed US President Barack Obama's policy to pullout US troops; he accused Obama of failing to live up to people's expectations concerning peace and stability in this south Asian country.

The interview came after NATO allies agreed late last week to allocate about 1.5 billion dollars to the support of Afghan security forces over the next three years.

Even though NATO previously earmarked a whopping five billion dollars for security-related issues in Afghanistan, the main problem is that the current sum really hasn't contributed to containing regional terrorism, according to Ali Amini.

"Both the international community and Afghan authorities are interested in doing away with terrorism. But I feel that the money is allocated only under the slogans because just few people want and can fight terrorism in Afghanistan. In order to practice what they preach, Afghan authorities must be responsible for the distribution of these funds," he said.

In this regard, he lamented the fact that President Obama had abandoned the Afghan people by adopting his strategy to withdraw US troops. According to him, the strategy brought "no real achievement related to the peace process" in the country.

"Afghanistan followed Iraq's way. The thoughtless and crumpled withdrawal of [US] troops from the two countries helped regional terrorism enter a new stage of development, with terrorists continuing to bring death and destruction. Almost every country in the world is currently under the remote threat of terrorism," he added.

He also praised Russia's efforts to fight Daesh (ISIL/ISIS) in Syria, urging the efforts of all parties concerned to contain this terrorist group.

"There are no real mechanisms for joining forces in Central Asia and the Middle East due to differences between regional 'great powers' and NATO.Russia, China and Iran offered a full-fledged plan to rectify the situation by involving the Taliban in talks, something that was opposed by Afghanistan," he said.

Speaking at the NATO summit last Saturday, the alliance's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that  NATO's "Resolute Support" mission in Afghanistan will be preserved beyond 2016, with a decision on the forces remaining in the country due to be made in the coming months.

The NATO mission to train, advise and assist Afghan security forces was launched on January 1, 2015 as a follow-up to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) combat mission, which finished in late 2014.

Afghanistan is struggling with a political, economic and social crisis as it attempts to tackle the Taliban insurgency. The situation in the country has worsened in recent months, with the Taliban launching offensives in major cities.