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Alliance leaders meet with Hamid Karzai to discuss handover of security but pledge not to simply leave country to its fate
Nato leaders are meeting the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to discuss the alliance's troop withdrawal from his country by the end of 2014.
The talks today at the Nato summit in Lisbon are aimed at deciding what sort of long-term military presence the alliance should maintain once responsibility for security is handed over to Afghan forces
Despite the withdrawal of troops Nato officials stressed the alliance would maintain a military presence in Afghanistan far beyond the end of the transition.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato's secretary general, said: "We will agree here today on a long-term partnership between Nato and Afghanistan to endure beyond the end of our combat mission.
"If the enemies of Afghanistan have the idea that they can wait it out until we leave, they have the wrong idea. We will stay as long as it takes to finish our job."
Ivo Daalder, the US ambassador to Nato, said the 2014 goal and the end of the alliance's combat role in Afghanistan beyond that date "are not one and the same".
The end date to hand Afghans control of security is three years beyond when Barack Obama has said he will start withdrawing US troops.
Military commanders want to avoid a rush to leave as public opinion against the war grows and Karzai pushes for greater control.
General David Petraeus, the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, is expected to make a closed-door presentation setting out his plans for the transition to Afghan control.
He is believed to be concerned that the withdrawal and handover does not undermine his forces' efforts to stabilise of the country.
Allied deaths have reached record levels this year and the Taliban has expanded its operations into hitherto safe regions in the north and west of the country.
The UK defence secretary, Liam Fox, in Lisbon with the prime minister, David Cameron, said last night that some British forces currently concentrated in Helmand province could be sent to other parts of the country after 2014.
"As the security situation improves we will change the number of forces, in some cases that will mean drawdown, in some other cases it will mean repositioning our troops in different parts of Afghanistan," he told the forces' broadcaster, BFBS.
Yesterday the alliance's 28 leaders agreed to develop a new joint missile defence shield to protect Europe and North America against potential ballistic rocket attacks from countries such as Iran, Syria and North Korea.
Obama said: "It offers a role for all of our allies. It responds to the threats of our times. It shows our determination to protect our citizens from the threat of ballistic missiles."
Obama did not explicitly mention Iran as one of those threats, acceding to the wishes of Nato member Turkey, which had threatened to block the deal if its neighbour was singled out.
Nato plans to invite Russia to join the missile shield effort, although Moscow would not be given joint control. The gesture would mark a historic milestone for the alliance, created after the second world war to defend western Europe against the threat of invasion by Soviet forces.
The Kremlin and western governments appear poised to embark on a range of joint security, political and military projects aimed at closing the worst period of friction since the cold war.
The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, and the alliance leaders are expected to agree on a range of other policies and projects today, from Afghanistan to joint analysis of future security threats.
The Russians have agreed to expand Nato supply routes to and from Afghanistan, to service Afghan helicopters, train Afghan pilots and conduct joint programmes with the west aimed at countering the Afghan heroin trade.
Nato yesterday also approved a new 10-year plan defining its role in the world. The "strategic concept" commits Nato to defending all member states, countering new threats and working towards a world free of nuclear weapons.
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