NATO chief seeks $2b for Afghan forces: report

NATO is seeking two billion dollars a year from the international community to help support Afghanistan's security forces, a British newspaper reported Monday. Secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told the paper that Tuesday's conference on Afghanistan in The Hague was an opportunity to ask for pledges from outside the 26-member military alliance to help keep the country stable. "The potential major donor states -- Japan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states -- will all be in The Hague," he said. "I am not saying funding should come exclusively from those circles. But it is difficult to see how NATO allies -- given the enormous amounts they are spending keeping forces there -- can bring in two billion dollars a year. It's impossible for them." So far NATO fund required to sustain the 134,000 troops of the Afghan army contained only 25 million dollars, the report quoted him as saying.

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