British ambassador tipped for top civilian Nato post in Afghanistan

A British diplomat is being tipped to take on a top Nato civilian role in Afghanistan, co-ordinating the flow of billions of dollars in reconstruction funds around the country. Mark Sedwill, the British ambassador in Kabul, is said to be the leading candidate for the job of Nato's special civilian representative, which will be given enhanced powers to orchestrate an international reconstruction effort that has hitherto been faltering and badly co-ordinated. Western diplomats today confirmed Sedwill was a candidate, but said no decision had been taken. The Nato post is potentially one of the most powerful in Afghanistan, as it would oversee the work of the provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs), Nato-run civil and military groups that carry out the lion's share of roadbuilding, construction and development work around Afghanistan. The British-run PRT in Helmand province spent $529m (£326m) last year, compared with the Afghan government's budget for the province of $14m. Western officials want Kabul to take on an increasing share of the responsibility and resources, but a better co-ordinated PRT network would allow development work to be accelerated in the next few months to help the counter-insurgency effort. Until now, the work of each PRT has been the responsibility of the lead Nato nation in the province, resulting in duplication and incoherence. In its new form, the Nato representative will in theory have equal authority to the US military commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who leads the 110,000-strong International Security Assistance Force. The US ambassador will also continue to wield considerable clout. The reorganisation of the international effort is due to be discussed at the London conference on Afghanistan starting next Thursday. The thinking is that the Nato representative will work with a new UN special envoy to replace the outgoing Kai Eide (a job widely expected to go to a Swedish diplomat, Staffan di Mistura), with a new post of EU special representative. "Together they are supposed to present a co-ordinated and coherent international position to the Afghan government," a western diplomat said. James Appathurai, the Nato spokesman in Brussels, said he could not discuss candidates but added: "This will strengthen the co-ordination of the work being done by the Nato PRTs, and there is a lot of room for improvement there, to meet the objectives of the Afghan government." Last year, some senior American officials had pushed for the creation of a super-envoy or high representative in Kabul to combine the Nato and UN positions, a role once offered to Britain's former liberal leader, Paddy Ashdown. But such a hybrid post would have to be granted special statutory powers in Afghanistan, and President Hamid Karzai was believed to oppose them. The new Nato job is seen as a second-best solution to co-ordinating the international effort. Appathurai insisted yesterday that the new Nato post would not be expanded at the expense of the UN's role in Afghanistan. "The bottom line is that this post will not infringe on the United Nations work in Afghanistan," he said. "The Nato allies strongly support a strong UN mission in Afghanistan." Sedwill, 45, has been Britain's ambassador to Afghanistan since last April, and was formerly a UN weapons inspector in Iraq and a British government spokesman on the Middle East.