POIANA BRASOV, Oct 13: Germany opposes a merger of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, its defence minister said on Wednesday as the US urged its allies to begin planning for possibly taking over command there as early as next year.

Germany's Peter Struck, who was meeting Nato counterparts including US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for informal talks in Romania, said Nato's mandate in Afghanistan was to stabilize the country, not to fight international terrorism.

"Therefore, we are against a merger of the two mandates," said Struck. Germany is a key contributor to the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the war-scarred country.

Nato has been in command of ISAF since last year but has struggled to drum up the troop numbers needed to expand the UN-mandated force outside of Kabul. The US is notably pushing its European allies to commit more resources to expand into western Afghanistan.

While ISAF is primary involved in peacekeeping and reconstruction efforts, the separate US Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) - a force of 20,000 soldiers - includes frontline units fighting suspected Taliban militants, notably on the Pakistan border.

"The German government sees its engagement ... with the ISAF mandate of securization and help and not with the mandate of fighting against international terrorism," Struck said.

The US ambassador to Nato, Nicholas Burns, had said on Tuesday the defence ministers were likely to instruct Nato military authorities to report back in February with options on how to merge Nato and US forces.

"That's the direction the alliance has been heading for many months now and it will likely be the result of Wednesday's discussion," Burns told reporters. He suggested that the two forces could be brought under a Nato command quickly once the plans had been drawn up.

"It could be 2005, it could be 2006, it depends on how things go. It really depends on what the military leaders will tell us - how would you do this, how difficult would it be, on what basis would it be," he said. -AFP