Dutch Government collapse set to prompt troop withdrawal

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Government collapse set to prompt Dutch troop withdrawal

The Dutch prime minister has tendered his government's resignation to Queen Beatrix after a disagreement over the country's Afghan military mission ended his ruling coalition.

Jan Peter Balkenende announced the collapse of the government after coalition parties failed to agree on a NATO request to extend the Netherlands' military mission in Afghanistan by a year.

The collapse makes the return of the Dutch NATO contingent from Afghanistan a near certainty.

There are almost 2,000 Dutch troops stationed there.

The region's governor, Asadullah Hamdam, says the Dutch presence was vital in providing security, training police and reconstruction.

NATO spokesman James Appathurai says the people of Afghanistan can rely on NATO support.

"We have invested a lot in Afghanistan and we will continue to invest in Afghanistan because its an investment in our own security," he said.

"Nato will stay as long as necessary and that is a very very clear commitment.

"The Dutch decision is for the Dutch to take and we will not interfere in that."

Mr Appathurai says the alliance would still like to see some sort of contribution from the Netherlands.

"The best way forward for the overall NATO mission would include a new smaller Dutch military mission as well," he said.

"NATO cannot and does not want to intervene in internal discussions of individual nations and we won't do that here as well, but certainly we want to keep this as a team effort."

Government collapse set to prompt Dutch troop withdrawal - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

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Cabinet collapse: what happens next?

The collapse of prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende's fourth government means new elections will be held within the next three months.

Christian Democrat and ChristenUnie ministers will stay on in a caretaker role until a new coalition government has been formed but are not allowed to take controversial decisions.

Temporary replacements will be found for the six Labor ministers.

Once queen Beatrix has signed the official declaration that the coalition government has been dissolved, the new election campaign can begin.

Unless the monarch agrees otherwise, elections must be held within 83 days. Political parties have 40 days to finalize their list of candidates - the Netherlands does not have a constituency based system and MPs are chosen on the basis of party lists.

Once the lists have been drawn up, there is a maximum 43 period for the formal campaign and vote itself. Eight days after the election, the new parliament will meet for the first time.

How to form a new government

Once the votes have been counted, the actual process of forming a new government can begin.

With a majority government requiring at least 76 of the 150 seats in parliament, forming a coalition can be a tricky business. It is a process which takes months: the longest cabinet formation took 208 days, the shortest just 10.

tehran times : Cabinet collapse: what happens next?

 

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Dutch troops to leave Uruzgan after cabinet collapse




The collapse of the coalition government in the Netherlands automatically means that Dutch forces will be withdrawn from the Afghan province of Uruzgan as of 1 August. The withdrawal of the 1,500 military personnel currently in the province will be completed by the end of December. The move is mandatory under a government decision taken in late 2007, in which the Netherlands signed up for another two-year stint in Uruzgan beginning on 1 August 2008.

The Netherlands is the first country of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to withdraw its troops. The only Dutch contribution to ISAF that is expected to remain consists of four F-16 fighter planes based at Kandahar Airfield. Some civilian personnel of the foreign affairs and development aid ministries may remain in Uruzgan. NATO is expected to task another member state with the activities currently being carried out by the Dutch.

Security
Dutch troops began deploying to the restive central province of Uruzgan in March 2006. On 1 August of that year, the ISAF Task Force Uruzgan began its work by creating a secure environment in and around two population centres: the capital Tarin Kowt and the smaller city of Deh Rawod along the Helmand river. After a heavy battle in Chora, northeast of Tarin Kowt, this region also became one of the 'ink spots' of the Dutch-led ISAF activities.

Relatively secure
According to the Dutch defence ministry, some 70 percent of Uruzgan’s population currently lives in relatively secure areas in three districts. Due to the limited number of available Afghan and foreign troops, three other districts remain in the hands of the Taliban or local warlords.

Multinational
Currently, the Dutch part of the Task Force Uruzgan comprises some 1,500 military personnel. Five hundred other Dutch troops are stationed elsewhere in Afghanistan. Six hundred soldiers of the Task Force Uruzgan form a 'Battle Group'. In addition, there is a Dutch-led Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), a Special Forces unit. It also includes Apache attack helicopters, heavy artillery and logistics units. A sizeable Australian Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force and smaller French and Slovakian units are also part of the Task Force Uruzgan.

Praised
The Dutch have been praised for their comprehensive '3D' approach combining defence, diplomacy and development. Based on information from the Dutch government, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen asked the Netherlands earlier this month to conduct a smaller, one-year mission in Uruzgan after 1 August. "This mission should focus on increased training of Afghan security forces and on responsible transition. This transition relates to the current tasks, projects and activities of your Task Force Uruzgan, notably your civilian-led PRT, to Afghan authorities and/or other ISAF partners", the Secretary General wrote. A dispute about this request quickly emerged, with Labour opposing any continued military presence in Uruzgan. On Friday night, the conflict came to a head and Labour left the government.

Casualties
Since the latest Dutch mission in Afghanistan began in March 2006, 21 military personnel have lost their lives. Sixteen were killed in combat or by improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The other five died in accidents.


Dutch troops to leave Uruzgan after cabinet collapse

 

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Dutch government falls over Afghanistan mission

BRUSSELS, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Dutch government coalition collapsed early Saturday over a NATO request to extend the country’s military mission to Afghanistan, Radio Nethelands Worldwide reported.

In a statement announcing his cabinet’s fall,Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said he would visit Queen Beatrice later in the day to offer the resignation of the Labour Party members of his government.

"As chairman of this government, I was forced to establish there is no fruitful road for this cabinet to continue,” said Mr. Balkenende after a 16-hour marathon meeting failed to save the three-party coalition.

The stand-off came after Deputy Prime Minister Wouter Bos, leader of the Labour Party, drew a line in the sand over extending the Dutch mission in the southern Afghan province of Uruzghan. Bos resolutely rejected a NATO request to remain in Afghanistan.

He added that remarks by Labour, demanding a rejection of NATO’s request to remain active in the Afghan province of Uruzghan, “placed a political mortgage” on the coalition’s cooperation and blocked a well-balanced debate about the extension of the mission in the Asian country.

The leading coalition party, Balkenende’s Christian Democrats supported extending the military mission, which is due to end in August. The Dutch were asked to maintain a smaller mission of 500 to 700 soldiers for training afghan security forces.

The current government is Balkenende's fourth cabinet. It was also the fourth time that he failed to carry a coalition to the end of a full four-year term.

During three years of government, many decisions were made only after long disagreement inside the cabinet. These included plans to raise the government pension age, how long to try to keep government expenditures up in the wake of the economic downturn, and whether or not to keep investing in the development of a new fighter plane, the Joint Strike Fighter.

Recent opinion polls in the Netherlands have shown many neither support nor understand the continued troop deployment in Afghanistan, especially in the wake of controversial Dutch government support for the invasion of Iraq.

The fall of the government may help the Netherlands. The Dutch pulling out of Uruzghan is a source of irritation in NATO and Washington, but a cabinet crisis is seen as a reasonable excuse, even if the result - pulling out of Uruzghan - remains the same.

Dutch government falls over Afghanistan mission

 

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Dutch Government Collapses Over Its Stance on Troops for Afghanistan

Dutch soldiers, at left, patrolled Saturday in the Afghan province of Oruzgan. About 2,000 Dutch troops are in the country.

Dutch soldiers in the Afghan village of Mirwais on Saturday were among 1,500 posted in dangerous Oruzgan Province.

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BERLIN — A last-ditch effort to keep Dutch troops in Afghanistan brought down the governing coalition in the Netherlands early Saturday, immediately raising fears that the Western military coalition fighting the war is increasingly at risk.
Even as the allied offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Marja continued Saturday, it appeared almost certain that most of the 2,000 Dutch troops would be gone from Afghanistan by the end of the year. The question plaguing military planners was whether a Dutch departure would embolden the war’s critics in other allied countries, where debate over deployment is continuing, and hasten the withdrawal of their troops as well.

“If the Dutch go, which is the implication of all this, that could open the floodgates for other Europeans to say, ‘The Dutch are going, we can go, too,’ ” said Julian Lindley-French, professor of defense strategy at the Netherlands Defense Academy in Breda. “The implications are that the U.S. and the British are going to take on more of the load.”

The collapse of the Dutch government comes as the Obama administration continues to struggle to get European allies to commit more troops to Afghanistan to bolster its attempts to win back the country from a resurgent Taliban. President Obama has made the Afghan war a cornerstone of his foreign policy and, after months of debate, committed tens of thousands more American troops to the effort.

Dutch leaders had promised voters to bring most of the country’s troops home this year. But after entreaties from the United States, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende tried to find a compromise to extend the Dutch presence, at least on a scaled-back basis. Instead, the Labor Party pulled out of the government after an acrimonious 16-hour cabinet meeting that ran into the early hours of Saturday.

The Dutch troops have been important to the war effort, despite their small numbers, because about 1,500 of them were posted in the dangerous southern Afghan province of Oruzgan.

Analysts said that new elections in the Netherlands, as well as the departure of the Dutch troops, now appeared inevitable.

The war in Afghanistan has been increasingly unpopular among voters in the Netherlands, as in many other parts of Europe, creating strains between governments trying to please the United States and their own populations.

But the tension in the Netherlands also reveals how deep the fissures over the war have grown within the NATO alliance.

As the number of Dutch military casualties has increased — 21 soldiers have died — the public back home has grown increasingly resentful at the refusal of some other allies, in particular the Germans, to join the intense fighting in the south.

The probable loss of the Dutch contingent and the continuing resistance to significant increases in manpower by other allies demonstrate the extent to which the dividend expected from the departure of President George W. Bush, who was so unpopular in capitals across the Atlantic, has not materialized despite Mr. Obama’s popularity in Europe.

“The support for Obama was always double-faced,” said Stefan Kornelius, foreign editor of the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. “It was never really heart-felt. People loved what they heard, but they never felt obliged to support Obama beyond what they were already doing.”

Since taking office, Mr. Obama has been pressing the non-American members of the coalition to increase their contribution, seeking up to 10,000 additional troops. While NATO has pledged around 7,000 troops, critics of the alliance’s efforts accuse it of fuzzy math: counting up to 2,000 soldiers who were already in Afghanistan but had been scheduled to leave after the recent election.

And even the 7,000 figure was notional; NATO is holding a “force generation conference” this week at which time official pledges will be made, and there are questions about whether it will reach that number.

The Dutch contingent is part of the roughly 40,000 troops from 43 countries that are aiding the United States in Afghanistan, most of those from NATO. The United States is fielding about 75,000 troops, but that number is expected to rise to about 98,000 by the end of the summer.

The Dutch troops were deployed to Oruzgan in 2006 and were originally supposed to stay for two years; that mandate already had been extended another two years to August 2010.

Analysts in the Netherlands said they expected the Dutch troops to leave on time because any deal to keep them there appeared all but impossible in the tumult following the government’s collapse.

“I don’t think there’s room, with a government falling and waiting for elections, for there to be a decision,” said Edwin Bakker, who runs the security and conflict program at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations.

Although American officials are concerned that an exodus by the Dutch could prompt other allies to follow suit, a sudden rush to exit seemed unlikely.

“There is a groundswell of distress in Europe, of feeling this isn’t working, but does that translate into electorates saying we’re going to vote you down? I don’t see that,” said Constanze Stelzenmüller, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin.

But the collapse of the Dutch government reinforced the difficulty of holding together an alliance made up of a multitude of countries, each with its own fractious domestic politics.

On Saturday, Mr. Balkenende informed Queen Beatrix, the country’s head of state, of the government’s resignation. According to the Dutch media, she is vacationing in Austria, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs said a decision about whether to hold new elections would probably be made in the next several days. By law the election would have to be held within 83 days of the queen’s decision.

The question of retaining troops in Afghanistan was far from the only issue pulling apart the parties in the governing coalition in the Netherlands; the parties were also divided over a controversial decision to increase the retirement age and the impending need for deep budget cuts. But the dispute over the troops brought relations to the breaking point.

“The majority of the Dutch people say, ‘Go, we’ve done enough. Let other countries do it now.’ That’s a big majority and also the majority in the Parliament,” said Nicoline van den Broek-Laman Trip, a former senator from the Liberal Party, who said she supported the Dutch mission but also believed that it was time to pull back most of the troops, leaving F-16s and perhaps trainers for local Afghan troops.

“They’ve got a small military,” said Mr. Lindley-French of the Netherlands Defense Academy. “The force has suffered a great deal of wear and tear. The Dutch have hung in there.

“The real failing is the ability of NATO partners and allies to rotate through the south and the east of the country, where the real center of the struggle exists.”

Dutch Government Collapses Over Its Stance on Troops for Afghanistan - NYTimes.com

 

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Dutch Government Falls Over Afghan Troop Mission

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's coalition government collapsed on Saturday when the two largest parties failed to agree on whether to withdraw troops from Afghanistan this year as planned.

The fall of the government in the EU country, just two days short of the coalition's third anniversary, all but guarantees that the 2,000 Dutch troops will be brought home this year.

That would be the first major a crack in the coalition of some 40 nations battling a steadily increasing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

The collapse, the fourth for a cabinet led by Balkenende in eight years, throws into doubt the scope and timing of planned budget cuts for next year as well.

"I unfortunately note that there is no longer a fruitful path for the Christian Democrats, Labour Party and Christian Union to go forward," Balkenende, who leads the centre-right Christian Democrats, told reporters.

It followed more than 15 hours of talks and acrimonious exchanges throughout the week. Balkenende officially offered Queen Beatrix the resignations of the Labour ministers on Saturday morning, and she summoned the fallen cabinet's leaders and other state officials to the royal palace on Monday.

Balkenende wanted to extend the Dutch deployment in Afghanistan past an August deadline, but Deputy Prime Minister Wouter Bos's Labour Party opposed any extension.

NATO had asked the Netherlands, among the top 10 contributing nations to the mission, to investigate the possibility of a longer stay.

NATO spokesman James Appathurai said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen respected the Dutch discussion.

"The Secretary General continues to believe that the best way forward for the mission would be a new smaller Dutch mission to consolidate the progress that the Dutch have made until now, and to help the process of transition to Afghan lead," he said.

MID-YEAR ELECTIONS

Parliamentary elections could be held mid-year at the earliest, but would probably be followed by months of talks between parties to form a coalition government.

A new government may prove difficult to establish, with opinion polls suggesting four or five parties may be needed to secure a majority coalition in the 150-seat parliament.

"We are in the middle of a financial crisis and holding elections now would lead to a lot of insecurity for the public and investors," said Andre Krouwel, professor of political science at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. "It is not the time to hold national elections."

Right-wing legislator Geert Wilders' Freedom Party, which has called for an end to the Afghan mission, could be the big winner at the next election. Opinion polls tip the party, campaigning on an anti-immigration ticket, to become the largest or second biggest party in parliament.

"Unlike the leftish parties of the Dutch political spectrum, we are not against fighting against the Taliban and fighting for freedom in Afghanistan, but we believe the Dutch have done enough," Wilders told Reuters in an interview.

The Netherlands has some 1,940 troops based mainly in the volatile southern Afghan province of Uruzgan and has lost 21 of its soldiers there, adding to Dutch opposition to the war.

Labour could regain some much-needed electoral support by its opposition to the war in Afghanistan but that may not be enough to form a coalition. Bos was campaigning in Utrecht on Saturday for municipal elections due March 3.

Meanwhile, the Christian Democrats moved quickly to name Balkenende their leader for the election, defusing months of speculation he would be replaced for the next poll by Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen.

AUSTERITY MEASURES

The collapse of Balkenende's coalition effectively nullifies an existing agreement to hold off any economic austerity steps until 2011 and could lead to deeper cuts in September's budget.

This week, the Dutch government's main think-tank raised its 2010 budget deficit forecast to 6.1 percent of gross domestic product but called for a 2011 deficit of 4.7 percent, implying that steep spending cuts will be needed.

That could crimp the Dutch economy, which just entered a recovery after four quarters of contraction.

The Dutch mission in Afghanistan, which started in 2006, is scheduled to end in August with the last of the troops leaving in December.

"A withdrawal will damage the reputation of the Dutch as a reliable partner that is willing and able to contribute to important military missions," said Edwin Bakker, a senior research fellow at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague.

(Additional reporting by Ben Berkowitz, Harro ten Wolde and Gilbert Kreijger in Amsterdam, Sophie Hardach in Paris, Svebor Kranjc in The Hague and Bate Felix in Brussels; Editing by Jon Hemming)

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/02/20/world/international-uk-dutch-government-afghanistan.html

 

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A setback for the UN mandate inside Afghanistan . The Dutch will be missed ..!

 

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Whose gona be next , Canada , Australia , Britan etc..! I hope no other country leaves Afghanistan as job is not finished . The UN mandate must be respected and enforced ..!

 

[Abi]

If they leave, i hope they can still give aid to the Afghan government.

 

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If they leave, i hope they can still give aid to the Afghan government.

I fear that the public sentiment is highly against this WAR , so no effort in helping the corrupt drug lords will be appreciated . The new Gov will be more watchful for such things ..!

 

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now thats 39 nations left fighting a tough battle inside Afghanistan ...!

 

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Europe reacts to Dutch gov't fall

Besides the collapse of the Dutch government, the war in Afghanistan has also raised disputes in many other European countries. But NATO says it will not intervene in discussions in the Netherlands.

On Saturday, NATO said it would not comment on the collapse of the Dutch government over its mission in Afghanistan. But it did say the operation there was a team effort.

James Appathurai, NATO Spokesman, said, "The secretary-general of NATO has not changed his position of course. For him the best way forward for the overall NATO mission would include a new smaller Dutch military mission as well."

Europe reacts to Dutch govt fall CCTV-International

 

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Nato reassures Afghans after Dutch government collapse

Nato has assured Afghans they can rely on its support despite the uncertain future of Dutch troops there following the collapse of their government.

It came after the two largest parties failed to agree over a Nato request to extend the tour of the almost 2,000-strong Dutch contingent past August.

A Nato spokesman said it would provide support to Afghans whatever happened.

Earlier, the governor of Uruzgan said peace and reconstruction efforts would suffer a setback if the Dutch left.

Asadullah Hamdam told the BBC they were playing a vital role building roads, training the Afghan police and providing security for civilians.

"If they withdraw and leave these projects incomplete, then they will leave a big vacuum," he added.

The uncertainty comes as Nato, US and Afghan forces are engaged in a large military offensive against the Taliban in neighbouring Helmand.

'Clear commitment'

Dutch troops have been stationed in Afghanistan since 2006.
They should have returned home in 2008, but their deployment was extended by two years because no other Nato member state offered replacements.

In October, the Dutch parliament voted that the deployment must definitely end by August 2010, although the government of Christian Democratic Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende had yet to endorse that vote.

Earlier this week, the finance minister and leader of the Labour Party, Wouter Bos, demanded an immediate ruling from Mr Balkenende.

When they failed to reach a compromise during marathon talks that continued into the early hours of Saturday, Labour said it was pulling out of the coalition.

Later, Mr Balkenende said there was no common ground and offered his cabinet's resignation to Queen Beatrix by telephone.
"Where there is no trust, it is difficult to work together. There is no good path to allow this cabinet to go further," he said.

Nato officials swiftly issued a message of reassurance about its operations in Afghanistan, but refused to comment on the internal politics of a member state.

"We have invested a lot in Afghanistan. We will continue to invest in Afghanistan because it is an investment in our own security," Nato spokesman James Appathurai told the BBC.

"Nato will stay as long as necessary. That is a very clear commitment. The Dutch decision is for the Dutch to take, and we will not interfere with that."

Mr Appathurai said Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen believed the best way forward would be a new smaller Dutch mission, including a provincial reconstruction team to consolidate successes.

Nato priority

The launch in 2001 of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) for Afghanistan was the organisation's first and largest ground operation outside Europe.



Mr Rasmussen said six months ago when he began his job that his priority was the war in Afghanistan.

As of October 2009, Isaf had more than 71,000 personnel from 42 different countries including the US, Canada, European countries, Australia, Jordan and New Zealand.

The US provides the bulk of foreign forces in Afghanistan, and President Barack Obama has announced an extra 30,000 American troops for Afghanistan.

The Pentagon has said the next 18 months could prove crucial for the international mission in Afghanistan, after more than eight years of efforts to stabilise the country.

Afghanistan remains a deadly place for foreign forces.

Suicide attacks on Afghan civilians and roadside bomb strikes on international troops are common, with the Taliban strongly resurgent in many areas of the country.

BBC News - Nato reassures Afghans after Dutch government collapse