By EuAsiaNews,
Brussels : Afghanistan and Georgia are to dominate the agenda of the 2-day informal meeting of NATO Defence Ministers in Budapest, Hungary, on Thursday and Friday.
Afghanistan’s defence minister Abdul Rahim Wardak will brief the defence ministers of the 26-member alliance on the current situation in his country, NATO spokesperson James Appathurai told reporters here Tuesday.
NATO currently has 50,700 troops under its ISAF mission in Afghanistan.
The spokesman noted that NATO Secretary General, Jaap De Hoop Scheffer, had a “very good meeting ” with Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi at the sidelines of the recent UN General Assembly in New York.
Both sides share the view that Pakistan faces the same threat that Afghanistan faces from extremism and that we need to work together to try to tackle it, said Appathurai.
They discussed providing training for Pakistani officers at NATO schools.
“We will strengthen our political relationship with them and enhance to the extent possible practical military to military cooperation, of course with the Afghans to lead there to the extent that Pakistan and Afghanistan , NATO and the Coalition can cooperate to tackle what is not just a border issue but an extremism issue on either side of the border,” he said.
“You will see stepped up military to military cooperation, you will see stepped up political engagement by NATO with Pakistan. The question is to define how we go forward,” added Appathurai.