The Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs has begun implementing new measures to lessen the casualties among the Afghan National Police.

The Afghan National Police are recently facing high casualties on duty, a senior official of the ministry said on Wednesday.

There is no exact figure about the casualties among the Afghan police but last year President Ashraf Ghani mentioned at a ceremony that more than 45,000 security and defense force members paid the ultimate sacrifice in the fight against insurgents in the past four years under the National Unity Government.

“There are various factors for the cause of casualties and we are changing how we operate. Most of the casualties are from the police being in static positions, where they become targets for the enemy, so we are slowly shifting and moving from being static to (becoming) more mobile, so it will take some time, but we are changing how we operate,” said Gen. Khoshal Sadat, the Deputy Interior Minister, as quoted in a report by Reuters.

Sadat said there have been new appointments in 30 provincial police headquarters in recent months aimed at bringing reforms and preventing corruption.

US Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in a tweet announced that he met with German Chancelor’s Foreign Policy & Security Advisor Hecker, German Foreign Office Secretary Michaelis and German Special Envoy Markus Potzel.

Khalilzad said that Germany also hosted 2nd US-Europe Group for Afghan Peace meeting where they reviewed upcoming Oslo Forum and German-Qatari hosted intra-Afghan dialogue.

“Our focus was intra-Afghan negotiations (that lead to a political roadmap) and who can do what to make it happen as soon as possible,” Khalilzad wrote.

EU Special Envoy Roland Kobia also added that Afghan peace was discussed in US-Europe coordination meeting in Berlin.

“Intra-Afghan talks a priority. Still lots of work ahead but some optimism if all parties, Afghan & int’ls, show reason & have long term view for lasting peace,” he says.