LONDON: British and Nato forces will hand over responsibility for security in parts of southern Afghanistan to local forces starting next year, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Tuesday.

Brown told reporters that by mid-2010 he hopes Afghan officials will take full control of two districts in the southern Helmand province, and indicated the tactics have the backing of President Barack Obama.

The strategy is aimed at showing that progress is being made by British and US troops in Helmand and outlining a path to eventual withdrawal.

'We want to be in a position where a number of the districts of Helmand over the course of the next year can be transferred politically to control by the Afghan people,' Brown told reporters.

Military leaders have said the process won't likely be completed before 2014.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday the strategy must begin urgently in areas where NATO forces are present. Germany has more than 4,000 soldiers in northern Afghanistan. Merkel said details would be discussed at a UN conference next year.

Britain has about 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, and has pledged to send about 500 more, if certain conditions are met.

Brown said he had discussed the strategy with Obama. 'I'm very sure that the decisions that we are making and the issues that we are setting out are very much in line with the American thinking,' he said.

He said a lack of fully trained Afghan security forces had meant some territory won in combat with the Taliban in recent missions hadn't been held.

'That has been unable to happen on the scale we wanted,' Brown said. 'We don't yet have enough Afghan troops to do so, or trained up to sufficient standard.'

Brown said British and US forces plan to focus efforts more closely on heavily populated areas in Helmand. -AP