Cameron: Afghan pullout 'realistic'

David Cameron has said that the agreement by an international conference to withdraw troops from Afghanistan by 2014 is an achievable goal.

The UK Prime Minister was speaking to NPR radio ahead of a meeting with US President Barack Obama: "We're training the Afghan army month by month and it's actually on target."

The conference in Kabul has agreed that Afghanistan forces should be in charge of all provinces by the end of 2014.

Ministers from more than 70 nations have endorsed a strategy that also says troops should start taking responsibility for security in areas of the country this year.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague told the gathering at the summit in Kabul, the handover should be able to "start soon". He also reaffirmed the Government's desire to have all UK combat troops out within five years.

Earlier, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had said: "I remain determined that our Afghan national security forces will be responsible for all military and law enforcement operations throughout our country by 2014."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said President Barack Obama wanted a "responsible conditions-based transition to Afghan security leadership in July 2011".

The Kabul conference agreed a communique backing Mr Karzai's target and stating that conditions would be examined with a view to launching the security transition by the end of 2010.

Prime Minister David Cameron has already indicated that he wants the bulk of Britain's detachment in Afghanistan to come home by 2015.

This latest conference comes in one of the bloodiest periods for international forces since the toppling of the Taliban administration in 2001, with 13 British deaths this month alone.

But the fact that Afghanistan was able to host its first high-level gathering in the capital was viewed in Whitehall as a mark of the security progress already made.

Nato secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the handover would be based on "conditions, not calendars".