 BRUSSELS - European Union countries agreed on Tuesday to send a fact-finding team to Afghanistan to study whether to answer NATOÂ’s call to train the countryÂ’s police force, EU diplomats said. But they said a training mission would only be launched if the EU could play a meaningful role, while also tempering expectations of a major operation.
| So they want to be big heat but they don't want to commit anything. How typically Y'urp-peon. |
‘This does not prejudice the final decision on whether there will be a mission or not in the end. And we are talking about a very small mission,’ said one diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity after a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels.
| "It will be so inconsequental that it shall not be noticed, but we shall feel very good about it." |
The fact-finding team is due to report to EU foreign ministers in December, making a final decision by the 25-member bloc doubtful before NATO leaders hold a summit in Riga on Nov. 28-29 focusing on Afghanistan.
Britain and the Netherlands had called on the EU on Monday to offer more help by training Afghan police. Along with Canada, they are the main NATO countries battling an insurgency in Taleban heartlands in south Afghanistan. They have pointed to the Afghan police force as a weak link in efforts to extend President Hamid KarzaiÂ’s authority across the country.
Germany, already training Afghan police on behalf of the United Nations, said at a meeting of EU foreign and defence ministers in Brussels on Monday that it would be ready to accept an additional EU mission.
| That's good, and thanks Andrea. And now for the witched witch: |
French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, whose country often resists US pressure for closer EU-NATO cooperation, questioned whether the training would ‘fit with the logic’ of what the EU is doing in Afghanistan, but backed the fact-finding team.
| Because you can't have too many facts, especially when you're trying to duck responsibility. |
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