www.persiaht.org

A recent annual survey conducted by the United Nations reveals that only 20 percent of those surveyed believe in the performance of their country's police forces.


More than half of the 7,000 participants view Afghan police officers as corrupt. The figure shows an improvement of seven points since last year.

This comes as Afghan government and its Western allies have failed to restructure and rebuild key institutions in the country.

Afghanistan is under intense foreign pressure to end widespread corruption in the country.

However, President Hamid Karzai and senior Afghan officials have frequently blamed the United States and its western allies for most of the corruption in the war-ravaged country.

Meanwhile, NATO has reaffirmed its plans to pull out of Afghanistan in 2014.

Following a visit with Afghan President Karzai, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced his country's plans to request a speedy transfer of combat operations from the Western alliance NATO to Afghan authorities.

The US is also planning to cut the presence of its forces to 67,000.

In 2001, the United States led an invasion of Afghanistan under the pretext of removing Taliban militants from power.

Just over a decade into the invasion, security situation remains fragile in Afghanistan despite the presence of thousands of US-led foreign forces in the Asian country.