国际英语新闻：British combat troops to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2014: foreign secretary

LONDON, July 20 (Xinhua) -- British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Tuesday that the country's combat troops should be out of Afghanistan by 2014.

In a BBC radio interview, Hague said: "We are trying to make sure that the Afghan state can look after itself in the future so that our forces don't have to be here in the long term. We have said we won't be there in five years time with combat troops in combat, but that is not remotely saying we cannot win."

"The Afghan forces are building up their own capacity so that by 2014 they will be able to cope without us. We can get to the state where the Afghan state and the Afghan armed forces can stand up on their own," Hague added.

He said the target was to get to 134,000 Afghan members of the armed forces by this autumn and that target had already been reached.

"More and more we have to encourage the Afghans to have ownership of what's happening in their country and have more and more armed forces," said Hague.