SINGAPORE, Nov 27: Afghanistan is a more immediately pressing issue than Iraq because of the potential of spill-over into neighbouring countries, former US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said on Monday.

''I would argue that the stakes in Afghanistan are much larger in the near term than they are in Iraq,'' Armitage said, predicting that Iraq's troubles would remain internal for some time.

''But if Afghanistan is not a success, Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan will not be successful in moving to invite moderation.''

And in that scenario, Armitage said, Pakistan's hard-line Muslims could gain control of the nation's nuclear weapons and missiles, which would in turn affect neighbouring India.

''The knock-on effect of a lack of success in Afghanistan would have enormous repercussions,'' he told an audience gathered for a three-day retreat on humanitarian conflict resolution.

He called NATO's current role in Afghanistan ''an excellent model'' of an international peacekeeping solution.

Armitage said he expected further US military policy decisions would involve much more consultation and oversight now that Democrats had won control of Congress in midterm elections.

''I personally believe that we need some time to reconstitute our Army and our Marine Corps,'' he said. ''They've been running very hard, they've been put away very wet, their equipment is very damaged, so it'll take some time to reconstitute.''

In a wide-ranging speech touching on various countries that the United States has interests in, Armitage also disagreed with US President George W. Bush's refusal to engage in talks with North Korea.

''To some extent he has felt that diplomacy is weakness. My own view is quite the opposite,'' he said. ''Far from being weakness, diplomacy is a matter of not only letting the other guy have your way, but also understanding what makes them tick, understand where the dichotomy might be in their position.” —AP