NATO urged do more in Afghanistan
Foreign Desk Report

LONDON—Britain wants some of its NATO allies to start pulling their weight more in Afghanistan, International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said Sunday, ahead of crunch talks on the issue.
Germany and France are among the nations which have been criticised for failing to send forces to the areas where fighting is the most intense. “We’ve made clear to our NATO partners that we do want to see appropriate burden sharing, not simply in terms of the number of troops on the ground, but where those troops are committed within Afghanistan,” Alexander told BBC television.
“It’s obviously a discussion that we’ve recognised we need to have with colleagues to make sure there is appropriate burden-sharing right across Afghanistan.”US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to visit Britain this week to discuss Afghanistan and NATO defence ministers are to hold an informal meeting in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on Thursday and Friday.
The United States has ramped up its attempts to get other countries to get stuck into fighting the Taliban insurgency in the battle-ravaged south of Afghanistan. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force comprises some 42,000 troops from 39 countries.
Canada has warned it could withdraw its 2,500 troops if NATO fails to send reinforcements to the south. Commanders in Afghanistan have been calling for around 7,500 extra troops to be deployed in the region. There are about 7,800 British troops in Afghanistan, most of whom are in the restive southern province of Helmand.
“Notwithstanding all of the real challenges — poverty, narcotics, insurgency — we are making progress in Afghanistan,” Alexander said. “It’s a desperately poor country. “Where the roads end the Taliban begin. “Where you have law and order and security you can eradicate poppies, and where you have insurgency it’s far more difficult”.