NATO pressure
December 3, 2009
US President Barack Obama's new Afghanistan strategy, unveiled earlier this week, is to top the agenda when Guido Westerwelle and his counterparts from NATO's other 27 member states meet in Brussels.
European leaders were quick to offer verbal support on Wednesday to Obama's new plan, which includes sending 30,000 more US troops to join the fight against the insurgency by Taliban militants. But major NATO allies France and Germany put off committing any more troops until another conference set for the end of January.
"After this conference on Afghanistan, Germany will decide whether or not it will make fresh efforts, and if so, what efforts," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday. Media reports had said that the United States was expecting Germany to contribute another 2,500 soldiers to the Afghanistan mission.
US takes heat off Merkel
In an effort to cover Merkel, who needs to assuage a public turning against the war, US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke promised on Thursday morning that the US would not bully Germany into sending more troops.
“The Bundeswehr has already lost more than 30 soldiers in Afghanistan – that is historic,” the diplomat told the German business daily Handelsblatt. German troops are stationed in the relatively peaceful northern part of the country, but Holbrooke said that the US recognized that the danger there had increased in the past few months and that he understood the difficulty of Merkel's position.
Holbrooke also said he was not expecting any concrete commitments from the NATO summit in Brussels, but warned that if Obama's new plan for Afghanistan did not succeed, then there could be "a very serious increase in violence" in the country. Holbrooke called Afghanistan the "ultimate test" for the alliance.
Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, is also expected to approve an extension of the current mission to Afghanistan on Thursday. The limit for the number of German troops in Afghanistan is currently 4,500, and the Bundestag is expected to extend their mission for another year. Germany already has 4,300 soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan.
bk/AFP/AP/dpa
Editor: Chuck Penfold