Germany rejects troop request for southern Afghanistan

[Marulus]

Germany rejects troop request for southern Afghanistan

by Deborah Cole

Friday, February 1, 2008


German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung is seen in Hanover, Germany in 2007. Germany on Friday rejected an urgent US call for combat troops in battle-ravaged southern Afghanistan, insisting Berlin's focus on reconstruction efforts in the relatively calm north was justified.(AFP/File/John MacDougall)

BERLIN (AFP) - Germany on Friday rejected an urgent US call for combat troops in battle-ravaged southern Afghanistan, insisting Berlin's focus on reconstruction efforts in the relatively calm north was justified.

Amid reports of transatlantic tensions over the NATO mission in Afghanistan, German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said the mandate in place until October ruled out stationing soldiers in the turbulent south.
"I think we will continue to do our part as foreseen by the parliamentary mandate," Jung told reporters. "That will have to continue to be our focus."

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates reportedly sent an "unusually stern" letter to Jung last month demanding combat troops, helicopters and paratroopers for Afghanistan and charging that some NATO states were not pulling their weight.

Jung responded with a similarly "direct and stern" letter, the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Friday.

The minister confirmed that Germany, as well as several other NATO member states, had received a letter from Gates, but declined to comment further on its content.

Government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said Berlin found Gates's letter "surprising".

"During all the meetings and talks we have had with the US side in recent months, the engagement of the German military in the framework of the mandate with its focus on northern Afghanistan was expressly praised," he told reporters.

"It was recognised that the German military is doing important, useful work there and we have always made clear that the mandate in its current form as foreseen by the parliament is the basis of our engagement in Afghanistan and that the content of this mandate is not subject to debate."

He said Jung would be discussing the issue with his NATO counterparts at a meeting in Vilnius next week.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer held talks Friday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in Paris.

"(I) cannot say that (Sarkozy) gave me assurances, but (...) the indications I have are that it is quite possible France will take on a greater responsibility in Afghanistan, although that is a decision for the French government."

France has about 1,600 soldiers engaged in Afghanistan, just over half the German contingent of 3,100 -- nearly all of them deployed in the capital Kabul and the north as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

It is the third biggest troop provider after the United States and Britain.
The NATO chief said earlier that a surge in troops in Afghanistan was "very important".

"There's no doubt we must do more, but I don't think that it would be useful to speak about it in public because it would hurt our success in reconstructing and developing Afghanistan," he said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said German troops were making headway in stabilising the north of Afghanistan.


"I think that is also recognised by the United States," he said after talks in Berlin with his Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt.

Gates' letter came after NATO formally asked Germany last month to deploy a rapid reaction force of 250 troops in northern Afghanistan to replace a Norwegian contingent.

Berlin is expected to approve the request but public support for the six-year-old mission is slipping with a majority of Germans saying they oppose continued deployment.

There are about 40,000 NATO and 20,000 US-led coalition soldiers in Afghanistan. NATO commanders say they need about 7,500 more troops to carry out their mission.

Southern Afghanistan has seen the worst violence since the Taliban was ousted in the US-led invasion in 2001, after the September 11 terror attacks by Al-Qaeda.

The US State Department expressed concern Thursday that the international community could abandon Afghanistan, while Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper again warned, during talks with British counterpart Gordon Brown, that Ottawa would pull its 2,500 soldiers out of Afghanistan if it did not get reinforcements from other countries.

Scheffer noted that national commitments to United Nations, NATO and European Union military operations could be streamlined.
"It's the same defence budgets, the same soldiers, the same planes," he said, pointing out that 21 countries are now members of both NATO and the EU.

[stirpes]

[Marulus]

Poland raps NATO members over Afghan commitments

David Ljunggren

Reuters North American News Service

Feb 04, 2008 13:11 EST

OTTAWA(Reuters) - Poland's foreign minister complained Monday that some NATO members were not committing enough troops in Afghanistan and said there should be "no room for free-riding" inside the Alliance.

Radoslaw Sikorski said in a speech that the gap between what NATO wanted to achieve in Afghanistan and was in fact able to do "cannot have at its source the unwillingness of some counties to do their fair share".

The issue of troop commitments will be one of the main topics at a NATO leaders' summit in Bucharest in early April. Poland already has 1,200 soldiers in Afghanistan and plans to send 400 more this year.

Many nations with troops in Afghanistan have placed them in quiet areas and added a list of restrictions, or caveats, on what they are allowed to do.

This means most of the fighting against Taliban militants is left to Canada, Britain, the United States and the Netherlands, who all want others to contribute more.

"We will certainly, together with Canada, be arguing very forcefully in the run-up to the Bucharest summit that more needs to be done, that burdens have to be shared more fairly and that there is no room for free-riding," Sikorski told reporters after his speech.

"Who gives without caveats gives twice ... other countries have no troops in Afghanistan at all," he said, without identifying which nations he felt could be doing more.

Canada said last month it would pull its 2,500-strong military mission out of southern Afghanistan on schedule early next year unless NATO sent in an extra 1,000 troops and Ottawa procured helicopters and aerial reconnaissance vehicles.

Sikorski said Poland -- which joined NATO in 1999 -- was militarily stretched and could not provide more troops to the Kandahar region where Canada is based. It would however share the use of two helicopters with Canada, he added.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said last month that the alliance's very future would be in jeopardy if the Afghan mission failed. Sikorski said NATO's efforts needed better co-ordination and that the international community could not expect to leave Afghanistan any time soon.

"We should be under no illusion that progress can somehow be jump-started. We are in for the long haul," he said.

He also said Pakistan had to more do stop the flow of militants and weapons across its mountainous border with southern Afghanistan. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Rob Wilson)

[source]

[Marulus]

Berlin says it has no plan to boost troops in Afghanistan_English_Xinhua

So Germany would like to be in Nato, but just not send troops to where NATO asks them to send them. Ahh...

You are either in or out. To be fair.

[Marulus]

Hobbled in Kabul - by Charles Peña

[Franze]

Interesting, seven years and 0 results, interesting.... Germany doesn´t want more responsabilities in this stupid war. And Heroin being exported to Europe way Kosovo. Traitors!!!