Special Ministerial Meeting on Afghanistan

Secretary-General Kofi Annan today asked a special ministerial meeting of some 20 countries, including some of the world's richest, for renewed help for the Afghan Government and said the support will likely be required into the future because the need is even greater than we thought and likely to last longer. He said the governments should be prepared to plan for continued assistance beyond the 2004 time frame set by an international donors' conference in Bonn in 2001 and called for a new international meeting early next year to reassess needs.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan (centre) and Lakhdar Brahimi (right), Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan, at today's special ministerial meeting on Afghanistan.