THE HAGUE (AFP) — Dutch troops will stay in Afghanistan with the multinational NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for another two years until 2010, the government said Friday.
In a widely anticipated announcement the centre-left coalition government said it would extend the mandate of the Dutch troops in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan until December 2010.
The mandate had been set to expire in August 2008.
The government decision still has to be approved by parliament but it is expected to go through because the parties in the coalition government, who hold a majority of the 150 seats are backing the extension.
"Today the Dutch cabinet decided that we will make a new contribution to the ISAF mission in Uruzgan for a period of two years," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende told reporters.
"The Netherlands will end its leading role in Uruzgan on August 1, 2010," Balkenende said. Troops would pull out over a four-month period and would be home before December 2010.
A government statement said that the mission would however be slimmed down as NATO partners Czech Republic, France, Hungary and Slovakia had agreed to contribute troops.
Currently the Dutch have some 1,650 soldiers in Uruzgan: that number will be brought to between 1,450 and 1,350, said the statement.
Balkenende said he wanted the parliament to vote on the matter before the Christmas recess which starts December 21.
"The government realizes that the new mission will ask a lot of the Dutch armed forces," the cabinet said in a letter sent to parliament Friday.
"Although it remains a complex and risky mission with a likelihood of Dutch victims the government believes the importance of the mission outweighs the risks," it added.
Most of the Dutch troops are in southern Uruzgan where they have faced heavy fighting with insurgents from the extremist Taliban movement that ran Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001.
The country has lost 12 soldiers since deploying last year as part of the ISAF mission.
NATO has been trying to persuade its partners in ISAF to recommit to the tough mission in Afghanistan and to meet a shortfall of soldiers and equipment.
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