By IRNA
Berlin : German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday reaffirmed the need for public support of Germany’s military mission in Afghanistan.
Merkel said in her weekly podcast that the issue of whether Afghanistan can develop normally with strengthened state structures or whether “it becomes again an ungovernable country is of essential importance for the Federal Republic (of Germany).”
“If terrorists are trained in Afghanistan, it poses a threat to the whole free western world,” she added.
Germany has deployed around 3,500 soldiers in northern Afghanistan and Kabul as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), in addition to police instructors and civilian reconstruction workers.
Merkel stressed that her country was doing her utmost to ensure the success of the western political and military mission in Afghanistan.
“On the one hand we need military means, on the other hand there can be no security without civilian rebuilding,” the German leader said.
She pointed to better schooling for children, better medical and health care and greater access to clean drinking water as examples of progress in Afghanistan.
German public support for the military mission continues to dwindle, according to various opinion polls.
At least 26 German soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since January 2002, according to German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung.
Berlin has also faced huge pressure by the US and Britain to dispatch troops to southern Afghanistan where NATO forces are battling revitalized Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents.