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Germany to step up Afghan security training: Merkel

24 January 2010 01:18 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ziya Agazade â€“ APA. Germany is to speed up the training of Afghan security forces, making this its primary task in the country, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday ahead of an international conference on Afghanistan, APA reports citing AFP.

"We are going to focus our military mission principally on training security forces," Merkel said in her weekly Internet blog.

"Germany is chiefly engaged in northern Afghanistan, and that is where we will fulfil our training commitment, in a speedier and more concentrated manner than hitherto," she said.

Merkel said she would meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Berlin on Tuesday and Wednesday to "discuss how best to coordinate Afghan and international efforts".
The chancellor was to address parliament on Wednesday on the government’s policy on Afghanistan.

Berlin’s participation in the 110,000-strong international force fighting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, the third largest behind the United States and Britain, is deeply unpopular among Germans.

Merkel made no mention Saturday of sending more German troops to Afghanistan, having previously said that she would take no decision on this score before the London conference on Thursday.

But Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper that he would present before London a "concrete figure for an eventual increase of the participation of German troops".

The increase would however depend on the outcome of the London meeting, he said in an interview to appear Monday. German troops in Afghanistan operate under a mandate which prevents them from taking part in offensive operations such as those undertaken by other countries.