AFGHANISTAN: NATO has taken over command of international peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan from Germany and the Netherlands, the first major deployment outside Europe in the alliance's history, writes Derek Scally.
The handover came as the US President, Mr Bush, warmly praised German troops stationed in Kabul, an apparent gesture to help repair relations strained over the war in Iraq.
Mr Peter Struck, the German Defence Minister, said at the handover ceremony at a Kabul school: "The task ahead now is to continue building democratic structures. Afghanistan must not lapse back into anarchy and chaos. Afghanistan can not become the home of global terror again, as was the case under the rule of the Taliban."
The school was surrounded by armed peacekeepers and tanks mounted with machine guns, showing the fragility of the situation some 20 months after the 5,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was installed.
The peacekeeping force was created to stabilise Kabul and protect the government in the wake of the US-led war in Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban. Mr Hamid Karzai, the interim president, used the handover ceremony yesterday to make another call for ISAF's mandate to be extended beyond Kabul, a safe island surrounded by unstable regions ruled by rival warlords.
He held talks with Mr Struck about stationing a German-led reconstruction team on the border with Pakistan, where US forces are still battling remaining Taliban forces.
The move could be controversial in Germany just two months after four German soldiers were killed and 29 injured after a suicide attack on an ISAF bus.
NATO will command the ISAF soldiers in an open-ended mission, the first of its kind outside of Europe. "It's a milestone in NATO's development, representing a real break from the NATO of the past to an alliance which is more relevant and has greater utility in the uncertain security environment of the future," said ISAF operational commander Gen Sir Jack Deverell in a statement.
The 5,000 ISAF peacekeepers in Kabul are drawn from 30 countries, although almost half are German, and will be led by Lieut Gen Götz Gliemeroth, taking over from another German, Gen Norbert van Heyst.
The end of Germany's six-month term leading the ISAF brought surprisingly warm words of praise from President Bush. He said he was very thankful for the German involvement in Afghanistan, calling it "very active" and "more robust than we expected".
The comments came after months of chilly transatlantic relations because of disagreements over the Iraq war and were interpreted in Berlin as an attempt to prepare the ground for a US request for NATO help in Iraq.
Mr Struck said at the weekend that Germany would be prepared to send soldiers to Iraq under an appropriate UN mandate. But yesterday the government strenuously denied it had any such plans.
Nevertheless, the matter is likely to come up when the Chancellor, Mr Schröder, meets President Bush at the UN session in New York next month.
Speculation is already rife of a possible German deployment next year.
"The US has overextended itself [in Iraq] . . . but the end of this American hubris should not be greeted with cheap feelings of triumph," said the Süddeutsche Zeitung yesterday, reflecting a common view in the German media. "The government must participate militarily in Iraq although they were against the war. Reconstruction is nevertheless correct even if the preceding war was wrong."