Welcome
German police training centre opens in Kunduz
The German Government is stepping up its commitment to rebuilding the Afghan police force. During his trip to Afghanistan, Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizière opened the new police training centre in Kunduz together with the German Ambassador to Afghanistan. Some 500 Afghan police officers will be trained there every year.
The German Government is stepping up its commitment to rebuilding the Afghan police force. During his trip to Afghanistan, Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizière today (29 March) opened the new police training centre in Kunduz together with the German Ambassador to Afghanistan. The centre has a capacity of 100 places. This means 400 Afghan police officers can benefit from basic and further training in Kunduz this year and from 2011 some 500 officers will be trained every year.
Training for Afghan police officers in the new centre actually began in early March 2010. As part of German efforts to stabilize the province, 14 new control posts were also built for the Afghan police in and around Kunduz.
This the third German police training centre in northern Afghanistan was set up by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH (German technical cooperation) and received funding of 2 million euro from the Federal Foreign Office budget.
Basic and further training is an important component of the German policing project in Afghanistan. There are currently some 130 German police officers working in the country. By mid-2010 there are to be 200 German police officers and experts deployed. EUPOL Germany is also involved in the EU Police Mission EUPOL Afghanistan. The number of German experts working as part of EUPOL Afghanistan is to be increased to 60 in 2010. In addition, 45 military police officers from Germany’s armed forces are also involved in the training. Other priorities of the German commitment to rebuilding the Afghan police force are assistance with equipment and infrastructure as well as financing police salaries through an international trust fund.
The German Government is endeavouring to step up civilian reconstruction once more. In 2010 funding will be almost doubled and total 430 million euro annually. German support for police capacity-building will this year increase to over 70 million euro.
(Joint Press Statement by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Foreign Office)