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NATO endorses US plan for Afghanistan

04 April 2009 21:05 (UTC +04:00)

Speaking at the Nato summit in the French city of Strasbourg on Saturday, the US president said the alliance’s members had given "strong and unanimous" support to his "new strategy" for Afghanistan.

He said the allies had pledged to boost forces in Afghanistan in order to secure the Afghan presidential elections in August, as well as to further train and fund Afghan forces.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy supported the new policy in Afghanistan, saying France would offer more assistance in training Afghan military forces and police, but no extra soldiers would be sent.

He said France, which has just been admitted back into Nato’s military command structure after a 43-year absence, was "ready to do more" in the field of police training and economic aid, but had initially been tentative about increasing troops.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also endorsed the new Obama concept.

She said the new American strategy fits well into the shared thinking among NATO members. "We want Afghanization," she said. "We want Afghanistan to be able to defend itself and ensure that no threat of terrorism emanates from its territory."

She promised that Germany would continue to fulfill its commitments in Afghanistan.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said allies were united in support for the strategy championed by Obama, who facours a regional approach to Afghanistan with a stepped-up civilian effort and training of Afghan security forces.

Under the U.S. strategy, the United States will send 17,000 additional combat troops to Afghanistan, and 4,000 troops to help train the Afghan army and more civilian personnel to deal with problems such as the narcotics trade.

The leaders agreed to work on a new strategic concept to update NATO’s current one as it does not reflect the present day practices of the military alliance, including the mission in Afghanistan, a NATO spokesman said. But collective defence and security would be at the center of the new strategic concept, he said.

The summit was co-hosted by Strasbourg and the German towns of Kehl and Baden-Baden.

This was the first time that a NATO summit had been hosted by two countries.

President Sarkozy said the fact that France and Germany, once such bitter enemies, were co-hosting this anniversary summit is testimony to what NATO has achieved.