America

Obama calls on NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-12-02 09:35

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama is to call on NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, when he announces his order to deploy 30,000 more US soldiers to that country, according to excerpts released by the White House ahead of his address to the nation Tuesday night.

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Obama spoke on Monday and Tuesday morning on the phone or via video-conference with counterparts from all over the world. Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, with whom Obama spoke to on Monday, said his country is to send 500 more troops to Afghanistan, which would raise the number of British soldiers in Afghanistan to around 9,500.

Apart from Britain, however, other major participants in the Afghan war are reluctant. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and German Prime Minister Angela Merkel all declined to say whether their governments are sending additional troops to Afghanistan. According to French newspapers, Sarkozy's government is considering ways other than troops to answer Obama's calls, such as expanding it's training to Afghan security forces.
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