NATO pledges security transfer to Afghanistan. A meeting held in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday, November 20 among North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) representatives and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, concluded with a pledge to draw down troops beginning in 2011, with plans for all combat operations to end by 2014. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen stated, “Here in Lisbon, we have launched the process by which the Afghan people will once again become masters in their own house.” The decision was welcomed by President Karzai, who in an earlier interview with the US-based Washington Post had said, “The time has come to reduce military operations... Make it more civilian. The Afghans remember with very fond memories, with a lot of love and affection, all the roads and dams that you built in 1950s and ’60s. That can be replicated; that can be repeated.”

Our respectful accolades, North Atlantic Treaty Organization members and President Karzai, for your decisions of advancing peace. We pray for the soldiers’ safety as they prepare to reunite with loved ones and for the lasting security and comfort of all the Afghan people.