BERLIN, March 19 (UPI) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel Monday vowed that her government won't be blackmailed into pulling out from Afghanistan.
Merkel, after talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Berlin, reaffirmed her country's commitment to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, despite demands to pull its troops out of Afghanistan in return for freeing two Germans kidnapped in Iraq.
"The German government cannot be blackmailed," Merkel said. "Naturally, given the situation, we are greatly concerned. We know what our commitment to the civilian rebuilding means to the Afghan government and we should not be blackmailed by people who are terrorists."
The remarks come after Berlin-born Hannelore Kraus, 61, and her son were snatched last month by armed men who entered their home in Baghdad, where the woman has lived since she had married an Iraqi professor. The kidnappers have called on Germany to pull its troops out of Afghanistan, or face the execution of the pair.
A few days before a video was released in which Kraus was begging for her and her son's life, a German aid worker was ambushed and executed by unknown individuals in northern Afghanistan.
Both incidents have apparently undermined popular support in Germany for the Afghanistan mission. According to a poll published Monday by German news magazine Der Spiegel, some 57 percent of Germans feel their soldiers should come home.
Karzai, however, underlined the importance of the German military and civilian assistance to Afghanistan. Germany has nearly 3,000 troops in northern Afghanistan with ISAF. Recently, Berlin agreed to send eight Tornado reconnaissance jets to help the international forces on the ground, including in the heavy-fighting southern provinces of the country.
