Troops to stay

German cabinet ministers announced plans to extend three missions by Bundeswehr soldiers at the start of the second day of a meeting at the Meseberg Palace near Berlin. But the government also expressed it’s a "visible" withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan within the current parliament, which will end in 2013.

"We don't want Afghanistan to be a mission that lasts for ever and ever," Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said at a news conference after the meeting. "We want to push on with a plan for self-sustained security."

4,200 German soldiers are in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) - representing the third largest contingent. The cabinet ministers have approved an extension of this mission for another year until December 2010, but the number of troops will not exceed the present limit of 4,500.

Westerwelle told reporters that the decision to extend military missions underlines Germany's commitment to its international partners.

Unpopular war

Opinion polls show most Germans oppose the involvement of their forces in Afghanistan, but the German government agreed on Wednesday to extend the army's mandate there by a year.

The Bundeswehr's mission against pirates in the waters around the Horn of Africa is also to be extended until mid-December 2010, and participation in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon is to continue until the end of June 2010. In both instances troop numbers are to be reduced.

The decisions to extend German troop missions must still be confirmed by the German parliament.

Earlier ministers had decided against the continued use of AWACS surveillance aircraft in Afghanistan, citing a dispute over airspace rights over Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. The craft are deployed from a NATO air base in Turkey.

mz/bk/AP/dpa/Reuters

Editor: Michael Lawton