EU to keep Afghan presence beyond 2014 - envoy

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union plans to provide assistance and development aid in Afghanistan beyond the complete handover of security responsibility to Afghans, scheduled for 2014, the EU's Afghanistan representative said on Tuesday.

The international community is planning to draw down its military presence in Afghanistan in coming years, with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force now scheduled to hand responsibility for security to Afghan authorities in 2014.

But the drawdown raises the possibility of a security vacuum, as happened when the Soviet Union left in 1989, opening the way to fighting between rival anti-Soviet groups, and eventually giving rise to the Taliban.

EU Special Representative for Afghanistan Vygaudas Usackas said that the EU would maintain a presence after 2014.

"It is very important to reassure the Afghan people and the region that the European Union alongside the international community will retain its presence through political, developmental and training means beyond 2014," he told reporters in Brussels.

"It is also of paramount importance to convey to the European public that we cannot afford the mistakes of the 1989 hands-off policy in Afghanistan and the region."

Usackas was speaking ahead of international conferences -- in Istanbul on November 2 and Bonn on December 5 -- where participants will discuss plans for Afghanistan's future.

Some countries have already announced timetables to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, but the United States, which commands ISAF and contributes about two thirds of its troops, has still not made clear when all its forces will leave.

Three weeks ago, NATO's Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the handover of security responsibility would not mean the alliance's withdrawal, saying that "transition is not departure."

Usackas said he hoped that EUPOL Afghanistan, an EU mission to help Afghans take responsibility for law and order, would continue longer than its current mandate, which runs until the end of 2013.

In the past six months, EUPOL had trained 1,700 policemen, 300 police trainers, 200 prosecutors, 30 defence lawyers and 20 judges, he said. Those numbers are a small fraction of the tens of thousands of police Afghanistan needs trained to meet targets to take over its own security.

"I hope that by the Bonn conference, we'll be in the position to state that the European Union will remain engaged in the security sector reform and continue its mission beyond 2014," said Usackas.

(Reporting by Sebastian Moffett)