Germany will decide whether to increase the number of its troops in Afghanistan only after the January 28 international conference in London on the war-torn south-west Asian country, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday.
"We are expecting requests from the United States but we will not take a decision in the coming days, we will do so after the conference on Afghanistan on January 28 in London," Merkel said after talks in Berlin with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
"After the conference Germany will decide whether, and if necessary, what additional efforts we can make," Merkel said, adding that she believed military means alone will not contribute much to improving the security situation in the war-torn country.
Currently, Germany has some 4,250 soldiers in Afghanistan, making it the third largest contributor to the 1,1000-strong coalition forces, behind the United States and Britain. While the U.S. has deployed 62,000 troops in Afghanistan, Britain has some 9500 soldiers stationed there.
Merkel's remarks came just hours before U.S. President Barack Obama is to announce his future Afghan strategy, including his final decision on deployment of additional troops to the war torn country, in a televised national address later in the day.
Though it is not yet clear how many additional U.S. soldiers Obama intends to deploy to Afghanistan, reports in U.S. media suggest that the U.S. President plans to send between 30,000 and 35,000 additional troops to the war-torn country, slightly lesser that requested by the top U.S. commander there.
Earlier, General Stanley McChrystal, the top commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, had submitted a report on the situation in Afghanistan with Washington and the NATO. He had also asked for deployment of 40,000 additional coalition troops in Afghanistan.
A day earlier, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had announced that his country would send an additional 500 soldiers to Afghanistan, taking the British troop numbers there to 10,000. Brown also said that other allied country's would follow, adding that he expects the NATO alliance members to contribute a total of at least 10,000 additional soldiers to compliment the expected U.S. troop surge.
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June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.