Afghanistan Times
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AT Monitoring Desk-KABUL: New Zealand is seemed confused over the Afghan mandate mission, because its defense ministry has not finalized the future course of actions and assistance.
New Zealand’s defense ministry said that it would make a decision very soon about presence of the country’s security personnel in Afghanistan as the mandate is going to run out by the end of this month.
According to a spokeswoman of the ministry of foreign affairs, eight Defense Force personnel are currently stationed at the Afghan National Army Training Academy in Kabul. The spokeswoman said that New Zealand is providing assistance to the war-hit country in areas of renewable energy, agriculture and support for policing by the Afghan security forces.
Being part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for over one decade, New Zealand has formally ended its operations in March 2012. Australia ended its military engagement in March this year. Since 2001, Australia deployed over 33,000 security personnel to Afghanistan and the Middle East.
