Murray McCully

Wellington, May 4 NZPA - Neville Reilly is be New Zealand's first resident ambassador in Afghanistan and Dick Newlands civilian director of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully announced today.

The appointments to Kabul were made because they are the right people to lead the transition from military to civilian operation, Mr McCully said.

"Until now, New Zealand has maintained its diplomatic relationship with Kabul from Tehran, while the PRT in Bamiyan has been under Defence Force command since New Zealand took over as lead nation in the region in 2003," he said.

Mr Reilly would be co-located with British diplomatic representatives in Kabul and perform standard ambassadorial duties.

"Of course that means maintaining a close relationship with our partners in Afghanistan, talking to the Afghan government and making sure that we make good decisions about the transition that are calibrated carefully with our partners those are obviously going to be delicate call."

Mr Reilly, a retired brigadier, was the first commander of the PRT in Bamiyan.

Mr Newlands retired as air commodore this year after a two-year posting to the headquarters of the US Central Command in Tampa, Florida.

New Zealand's aim was to leave Bamiyan as a "secure and self-sustaining" part of Afghanistan and to bring the military home, Mr McCully said.

There were two major annual transition points, in April and September, and New Zealand had an "indicative programme for drawing down from the PRT", he said.

"But we'll be revising that continuously as we look at circumstances, obviously the perception of the capacity of the Afghan national police, there being no Afghan national army in Bamiyan, to cope with security is a major factor, whether we have any new partners joining us on the ground is a factor...and of course look at capacity to deliver civilian development assistance work."

Mr McCully said he had no view on whether the SAS tour of Afghanistan should be extended, after NZPA reported Prime Minister John Key saying he would "consider" extending the SAS commitment due to end in March.

Labour leader Phil Goff said New Zealand troops were doing a great job in Bamiyan, but Labour was against the SAS being in Kabul as it did not think it appropriate to risk lives for a "corrupt regime that doesn't win the support of its own people".

Mr Goff said he wasn't surprised there had been a request by International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander Stanley McChrystal for the New Zealand troops to stay on.

"The Americans have got a lot of people there, they are obviously looking for support from wherever they can get it. We've had people there since 2001, somewhere along the line there has to be an exit strategy."

That applied to the Bamiyan team as well, but more urgently to the SAS team, Mr Goff said.

Green Party MP Keith Locke said his party opposed the decision to send the SAS to Afghanistan and would "strongly oppose" the extension of their stay.

"The underlying situation in Afghanistan is a more akin to a civil war involving warlords and complex tribal structures," he said.

"Our SAS troops should not be risking their lives defending the Karzai regime that has increasingly shown itself to be incompetent and corrupt."