“This will be my third visit to the country in less than a year – and my second in the course of about a month. Naturally, there are reasons for this. The involvement of the international community in Afghanistan – the UN, the EU, NATO and other actors – is tremendously important. The future stability of the area between Central and South Asia affects all of us in one way or another,” says the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

“A result from the presidential election on 20 August in particular is gradually emerging and we will probably have the complete picture by the middle of next month,” Mr Bildt continues.

“Without wanting to exaggerate, we can declare that it proved possible to keep the polling stations open in by far the greater part of the country. That was important.

”What we need to do now is see to it that the election result that comes out of this is seen as reasonably legitimate in Afghanistan itself so that it can provide a foundation for political stability at least a year into the future. The various challenges embodied in this simple statement are considerable.

“When I reach Kabul late this evening local time, intensive talks will begin focusing not least on this.

”I will meet the people responsible for now collating and evaluating the different parts of the election – as well as the leading national politicians and leading international representatives.

“Another important task will be to continue the discussions on augmented European political, economic and other civilian contributions that will be a central issue when close to 30 foreign ministers meet in Stockholm on Friday and Saturday.”