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Kissinger slams Germany's refusal to fight in S. Afghanistan

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Berlin, Feb 16, IRNA
Germany-Afghanistan-Kissinger
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger harshly criticized the Germany's steadfast refusal to send soldiers to war-stricken southern Afghanistan, where NATO troops are fighting fierce battles with revitalized Taliban and al-Qaeda forces.

Talking to the weekly Der Spiegel news magazine on Saturday, Kissinger seriously questioned Germany's full membership in NATO.

"In the long-term, we can no longer have two sorts of members. One sort is ready to fight while the other one does alliance a la carte.

That's not the way it works," Kissinger said.

"We need more German troops and we need more NATO troops in Afghanistan. What is not acceptable is that one of the NATO countries prefers to send troops into areas where there are no battles. That's not a healthy situation," he added.

Germany has faced the wrath of the US, Britain and Canada, for refusing to send forces to regions where fighting is the most intense like in southern Afghanistan.

Around 3,500 German soldiers are presently based in relatively peaceful northern Afghanistan as well as in and around Kabul within the framework of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission.

Meanwhile, Kissinger warned that German failure to send troops to combat zones will lead to its political isolation.

The German government has repeatedly denied news reports over the past days about a planned troop increase in war-torn Afghanistan.

German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger told journalists in Berlin on Friday that there were no plans to change the existing mandate.

He was reacting to a report in the daily Die Welt newspaper which claimed that Berlin had succumbed to US pressure tactics and agreed to dispatch at least 500 additional soldiers to
Afghanistan.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung and the whips of the co-governing Christian Democratic Union party and the Social Democratic Party, Volker Kauder and Peter Struck were scheduled to discuss the parliamentary mandate change, according to the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.

Meanwhile, Jaeger confirmed that such a meeting would take place but the focus of the talks would be on finding a consensus on a new mandate after the current one expires in mid-October, 2008.

He added it was "too premature" to dwell on new numbers about the size of German forces in Afghanistan.

Any troop increase has to be approved by the parliament since under the current mandate -- due to end October 2008 -- the German government is only authorized to station up to 3,500 soldiers in Afghanistan as part of NATO-led ISAF.

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