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Ashdown backs away from Afghanistan post

British diplomat Paddy Ashdown has announced he will not take on a UN post as a so-called "super envoy" to Afghanistan after Afghan President Hamid Karzai suddenly revoked his support.

Ashdown, who was Bosnia-Herzegovina's postwar international administrator, said that he accepted the job this month after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked him to be overall coordinator of international aid, government and political efforts in Afghanistan.

Ashdown, speaking on Sunday on British Broadcasting Corp television, said he initially had the blessing of Karzai, with whom he met last month in Kuwait to discuss the new role.

But Karzai changed his mind and in the past few days, raised objections during meetings with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Times of London reported. Brown's office declined to comment on the private meeting.

An EU diplomat also said Karzai had conveyed reservations about Ashdown to Brussels last week.

"I wouldn't have dreamed of undertaking the job unless [Karzai] agreed that I should do so. After I saw the UN secretary-general, we shook hands albeit over a telephone," Ashdown said on BBC television.

"Now something's happened that's changed his view. I think that's far more to do with Afghan internal politics than it has with the international community," Ashdown said.

A US official familiar with the Ashdown nomination process said the US had consulted with the Afghan government on Ashdown's nomination.

"We only sent Ashdown's name to the UN for official consideration after Karzai had given his blessing to both the person and the mandate," the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Foreign ministers representing NATO countries have discussed combining the roles of the current civilian representatives of the UN, NATO and the EU in Kabul into a single role. British officials had said Ashdown would be ideal because he had respect in world capitals.

The Afghan role would have been more limited than Ashdown's work in Bosnia, where he had sweeping powers. But he might have been too strong a figure for Karzai, whose government is widely seen as weak.

Ashdown said he never sought the kinds of powers he had in Bosnia when negotiating the mandate for the Afghan job.

"If they'd been offered, I would have rejected them," he said. "The government of Afghanistan is a sovereign government, it's a proud nation, President Karzai is its president."

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband expressed regret that Ashdown would not be taking over the expanded international role.

"The UK believes he was well-suited to this important role and would have done an excellent job," Miliband said. "It is now imperative that the UN and the government of Afghanistan work together as quickly as possible to agree a suitable candidate to take on this key role."

Ashdown, once a leader of Britain's opposition Liberal Democrats and a former Royal Marine, was top international administrator in Bosnia from 2002 to 2005.

Ashdown said US officials approached him about the job in October.
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