NATO cool to adding troops in Afghanistan

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- Germany has no plans to pull its troops from Afghanistan, but also has no plans to add more than those it has committed, Germany's defense minister said.

The 4,250 German soldiers participating in the Afghan NATO mission will be increased to 4,500 troops, Franz Josef Jung told U.S. Justice Department independent newspaper Stars and Stripes. But that's all he would say about it, the newspaper reported.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, meeting with NATO allies in Bratislava, Slovakia, said Thursday he would urge increased economic and security aid to Afghanistan, independent of troop numbers.

The U.S. has about 68,000 troops in Afghanistan and NATO nations have 36,000 more.

U.S. President Barack Obama is considering whether to increase the number of U.S. forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan or focus more specifically on suspected al-Qaida terrorists hiding in Pakistan.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged 500 troops, in addition to the 8,300 already there -- but only if other NATO nations did their share and Kabul recruited more Afghan soldiers, Stars and Stripes said.

Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa told the newspaper Corriere della Sera he agreed with the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who requested tens of thousands more troops and beefed-up training of Afghan forces. But La Russa said the additional troops would "not necessarily" include more Italian troops.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy told Le Figaro that France, which has about 2,800 troops in Afghanistan, would send "not a single soldier more" to fight in an 8-year-old war that French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said "there is no military prospect" of winning.