Afghan troops ready to assume security charge: Official

The Afghan interior ministry spokesman Tuesday said that the country's national security forces are entirely ready to take on the security charge from the US and NATO forces by the end of this month.

"The Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) is completely ready to provide security for the nation next year in 2015," Xinhua quoted spokesman Sediq Sediqqi as telling reporters at a joint press briefing with NATO civilian spokesman Christopher Chambers.

The comments came one day after the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops shut down a command centre in Afghanistan's capital Kabul.

The US forces and NATO-led troops will switch from combat to support role -- NATO-led Resolute Support (RS) mission -- which will focus on training, advising and assisting Afghan forces by the end of this month.

According to Sediqqi, the Afghan army and police will take full security responsibilities of the entire country from Jan 1 next year.

Jan 1, 2015, the new NATO mission begins in Afghanistan and nearly 13,000 NATO and US forces will be involved in the RS mission, according to NATO officials.

"Indeed, it is a different mission from ISAF, it is the first non-combat mission, and its focus is to train, advise and assist the Afghan National Security Forces at the institutional, ministerial and core level," Chambers said at the briefing.

Even if the NATO-led forces leave Afghanistan, international financial support for the war-ravaged country would stay, spokesman Sediqqi noted.

During an international aid conference held in Japan in July, 2012, donor countries pledged more than $16 billion in development aid for Afghanistan through 2015.

The US and its NATO allies also promised almost the same amount to support the Afghan army and police after pullout of their troops.