By KUNA
Paris : French President Nicolas Sarkozy will receive February 1 here NATO Secretary-General Japp de Hoop Scheffer for talks on the ongoing operations of Atlantic Alliance and future challenges, official sources announced late Thursday.
The meeting was announced amid signs of growing acrimony between some nations participating in Afghanistan, particularly after US criticism of the performance and commitment of some nations troops there.
NATO has sought a boost for its forces fighting the Taliban militants in Afghanistan, but there has been little enthusiasm among Alliance contributors.
France has just over 1,000 soldiers serving in the relatively peaceful region around Kabul, with a squadron of fighters also based in the more dangerous Kandahar region in the south of the country.
The French military have also contributed instructors for the fledgling Afghan army and Sarkozy has expressed a willingness to allocate more combat instructors to accompany the Afghans into battle.
After initially expressing doubts about the wisdom of staying the course in Afghanistan, Sarkozy now seems convinced of the need to pursue the fight against the Taliban and he is emerging as one of the staunchest supporters of US policy in that country.
Officials here pointed out that the NATO Secretary-General is meeting the French President for the first time and the two men will be discussing the preparations for the NATO summit which will take place in Bucharest on April 2-4.
Apart from Afghanistan, the two men will discuss the situation in Kosovo, where France also has a contingent with the NATO deployment there and where tensions are growing with pressure from Kosovars to declare full independence from Serbia.