NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the defence ministers have a "general shared view" that the alliance must make Afghanistan strong enough to defend itself against militants. The top US military commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, has warned the White House of a possible mission failure unless an additional 40,000 troop are deployed to Afghanistan. President Barack Obama has not yet made a response to the request from his hand-picked commander, as he is mulling over the request with top US cabinet members and national security advisors.
"There is the support of this counter-insurgency strategy, which means that ministers agree that it does not solve the problems in Afghanistan just to hunt down and kill individual terrorists," Rasmussein said.
Secretary Gates said he wouldn't discuss whether the troop-intensive counter-insurgency strategy is best or whether a more limited commitment involving air strikes and Special Forces operations would be better. He described any conclusions on that issue as "vastly premature," and said key presidential decisions are two or three weeks away.
But the secretary stressed that the United States has "no intention" of withdrawing from Afghanistan, and said even a US troop reduction is "very unlikely."
Also on Friday, Secretary General Rasmussen said the NATO defence ministers agreed to begin a process of identifying criteria for an eventual handover of security responsibilites to Afghan forces.
"Let me be clear, we have not agreed to start handing over the lead," Rasmussen said. "The conditions are not yet right. The Afghan security forces are not yet strong enough. And I must also stress that transition, when it happens, doesn't mean NATO forces leave. It means they go into a supporting role."
There are currently more than 100,000 international troops stationed in Afghanistan, most of them American.