MUNICH, Feb 7: The head of Nato joined on Saturday a chorus of criticism of European allies refusing to step up their efforts in Afghanistan, as the US prepares to send in thousands more troops.

Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer warned the Europeans that they were undermining their leadership credentials and upsetting the balance within the world’s biggest military alliance, as it battles a Taliban-led resistance in Afghanistan.

“I am frankly concerned when I hear the United States is planning a major commitment for Afghanistan, but other allies ruling out doing more,” he said, at a major international security conference in Munich.

“That is not good for the political balance of this mission. That is not good for the balance inside the North Atlantic alliance,” he said. “Leadership and burdens – they go together.”

Mr Scheffer, who did not single out any nation, warned that the failure to step up “makes calls for Europe’s voice to be heard in Washington perhaps a bit more hollow than they should be.”

New US President Barack Obama has singled out Afghanistan as his main front in the war on terrorism” and plans to deploy 30,000 more US troops there over the next 18 months.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is embarked on its biggest and most-ambitious operation ever trying to spread the influence of the weak Afghan government across the strife-torn country and help foster reconstruction.

Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States have troops on the frontline of that fight in southern Afghanistan, but other allies insist that reconstruction is as important as combat, and refuse to redeploy.

Mr Scheffer commended an editorial ahead of the conference written in newspapers by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in which they called for “a new transatlantic balance”.

They insisted in it that “the United States and Europe share leadership and burdens more fairly.” But both nations have ruled out sending more troops. France has some 2,800 personnel in Afghanistan, while Germany, in an election year, has set a ceiling of 4,500, most of whom are based in the relatively quiet north.

EU warned

Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra warned the European Union to realise that its focus should not simply remain trying to secure peace in Europe.

“The time is right to strengthen European defence and security by committing more financial resources, more military capacities and, most of all, more political will,” he told the conference.

“Afghanistan will be a real test here,” he said.

On Wednesday, Britain also scolded its Nato allies for not stepping forward to share combat duties, warning that there could be no freeloaders in the fight against the insurgents.

“An alliance worth its name must be one that shares the burden of membership equally amongst its members, because there can be no freeloading when it comes to collective security,” British Defence Secretary John Hutton said.—AFP