BERLIN, May 4: Germany said on Friday it had turned down an Afghan request to send 19 military instructors to southern Afghanistan, a particularly troubled part of the country.

The German parliament’s mandate for German troops authorises them to venture outside their northern base area only in exceptional circumstances and the Afghan request did not meet that condition, defence ministry spokesman Thomas Raabe said.

Germany has about 3,000 troops in Afghanistan in a mission that has sparked considerable controversy in the country wary of sending troops into combat six decades after the end of World War II.

Most of the soldiers are in the relatively calm north and the government has resisted calls to send them to areas such as the south and east where Nato troops are facing the fiercest fighting.

Other Nato members have been putting pressure on Germany to redeploy troops further south.—AFP