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OTTAWA: Canada is pressing other NATO countries to send more troops to Afghanistan and lift restrictions on the soldiers already stationed there, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor said on Wednesday.
Canada has 2,300 troops in the south of Afghanistan, where they have repeatedly clashed with Taliban militants. More than 40 Canadian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan so far.
NATO, conceding it is short of troops, is pressing member states to send more soldiers to the south but is running into resistance.
Countries such as Spain, Italy, France and Germany have declined to move troops to the south while some member nations place restrictions, or caveats, on what kind of missions their forces are allowed to take part in.
“I've started the process of talking to ministers of defence to see … if we can get these other countries to remove their caveats and to provide more troops,” O'Connor told Parliament's defence committee.
“The basis of NATO is that we're all in the operation together and we all have to help each other. … we would like more support from those who are deployed in the west and the north,” he said.
O'Connor said he hoped the questions of troop numbers and caveats would be solved by the time NATO holds a summit in the Latvian capital Riga at the end of November.
The 26-member alliance admits it underestimated Taliban resistance in the south, where British, Dutch and Canadian soldiers are embroiled in what has been the toughest ground combat in NATO's 57-year history.
