WASHINGTON: NATO alliance members are “very much interested” in keeping troops in Afghanistan but they cannot remain without critical types of U.S. support, President Ashraf Ghani said on Friday.
The Afghan leader spoke as the new administration of U.S. President Joe Biden conducts a review of the U.S.-backed peace process and a February 2020 deal with the Taliban that set a May deadline for a full withdrawal of American forces.
Addressing an Aspen Institute-sponsored online program, Ghani said he had spoken to the leaders of Canada, Norway, Germany and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and that NATO is “very much interested in continuing” the alliance mission in Afghanistan.
“But…NATO, without U.S. enablers, cannot continue its mission,” he said, using a military term for intelligence, air power and other kinds of support the United States provides.
Ghani also said that the United States – now with only 2,500 troops in Afghanistan – and NATO “must take a…