France Seeking Focused Plan to Battle Taliban

With France preparing to send troops to southern Afghanistan it is seeking a focused plan for NATO to battle the taliban.

PARIS — France, poised to expand its military commitment in Afghanistan, will push this week for a more focused allied plan to battle Taliban insurgents and rebuild the country, the French government said Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner “will express the need for the alliance to develop a true strategy in Afghanistan” when he meets in Brussels Thursday with foreign ministers at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting.

Kouchner will be attending an informal meeting of NATO foreign ministers where he is expected to discuss France’s ambitions with Canadian counterpart Maxime Bernier.

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Canada has waged a high-pressure diplomatic effort to convince NATO allies, and in particular France, to come up with the 1,000 troops Canada says it needs to continue its mission beyond 2009 in the dangerous Kandahar region of Afghanistan.

The Paris newspaper Le Monde reported last week that French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who will announce France’s plans at a NATO summit next month in Bucharest, wants to send the additional troops to the east to fight with Americans, rather than to the south with the Canadians.

Pascale Andreani, senior spokeswoman for the French Foreign Ministry, refused to comment on the report but said France isn’t ignoring Canada’s request.

“We have certainly heard the call of Canada,” she said at a news conference today.

“As I said to you, we are in the process of preparing a decision that will be announced in Bucharest.”

She also noted that France has already recently boosted its efforts in Afghanistan, sending Mirage fighter jets to Kandahar and expanding efforts to train the Afghan National Army.