New U.N. envoy arrives in Afghanistan

By Jonathan Burch

KABUL (Reuters) - The new U.N. envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, arrived in Kabul on Friday with a pledge to improve coordination with President Hamid Karzai's government.

"The Afghan government has asked for that for a very long time and we have to respond in a better way than we have managed so far," said Eide, a former Norwegian ambassador to

NATO.

Eide, who is replacing Tom Koenigs of Germany, is taking over at a crucial time.

Karzai is under pressure with a presidential election due next year. He is faced with people's frustration over a lack of security, slow pace of development and corruption within the Afghan authorities.

The enduring hardship faced by ordinary Afghans more than six years after U.S.-backed forces vanquished the Taliban has also fuelled some resentment towards U.N. agencies and some 43,000 NATO-led foreign troops still present in their country.

The Taliban insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan shows little sign of fading. The U.N. Security Council voted last week to extend for another year the mandate for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), and called for what U.N. officials describe as a "sharpened" role for Eide.

Western diplomats on the council said Eide would have to assume more responsibility than Koenigs did in coordinating international civilian and military activities and will have to cooperate more effectively with the Afghan government.