KABUL (PAN): Afghanistan has started preparations for hosting a follow-up conference in Kabul to be held a few months later of the January 28, 2010 international conference on Afghanistan in London to check on progress.

The London conference will be chaired by the foreign secretary, David Miliband, and representatives of many of the 43 nations involved in the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan will attend.

Karzai will tell the conference which targets he has agreed to meet in return for continued international support.

In Kabul, a spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs Ahmad Zahir Faqiri told Pajhwok Afghan News on Sunday that the country had started its preparations for hosting the international conference.

He said foreign affairs minister Dr. Rangin Dadfar Spanta had met with several European and a number of other countries ambassadors in Kabul to discuss with them the agenda and other related matters regarding the proposed summits.

Faqiri said the ministry was in contacts with foreign diplomats and there will soon be progress in this regard.

The plan about hosting an international conference on Afghanistan was revealed by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown during his address to the Commonwealth summit held in Trinidad and Tobago on Saturday.

Brown said the targets set by the international community and to be put to President Karzai at the conference on the future of Afghanistan would enable control of the country to be handed over to its own authorities district by district, and allow international troops to leave.

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also praised the idea, saying it was a very timely initiative to allow for the holding of a high level dialogue on the post-electoral agenda in Afghanistan as outlined by President Karzai in his inaugural speech on 19 November.

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