Labour insists Dutch pull out of Afghanistan

The Dutch government has praised US President Barack Obama's speech on Afghanistan.

Mr Obama announced he would be sending an additional 30,000 troops, and called on his allies also to send reinforcements.

Both Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen and Defence Minister Eimert van Middelkoop, respectively of the Christian Democrat and Christian Union parties, took a positive view of Mr Obama's strategy announcement. However, the Labour Party, the second largest party in the ruling coalition, maintains that the Dutch mission in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan should come to an end next year.

Labour Party MP Martijn van Dam said Mr Obama should call on Spain, Italy and France to provide extra troops, as he claimed that as yet their contribution had been inadequate. The United Kingdom, Italy and Poland have now committed extra troops, and both Spain is considering doing so.

US Vice President Joe Biden has talked to Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende on the phone. He told Mr Balkenende he hoped the Netherlands would extend its involvement in Afghanistan.

Former armed forces commander Dick Berlijn says the Netherlands should remain active in Afghanistan. He argues that President Obama's decision to send more soldiers and begin withdrawing troops in 2011 has created a new situation. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has called on the Netherlands to reconsider extending its mission to Afghanistan.

In response to Mr Obama's speech, a Taliban spokesman said the troop reinforcements would "provoke stronger resistance and fighting". He claimed the international forces would be ousted as was the British army in the mid-19th century and the Soviet army in the 1980s. "They will withdraw shamefully. They cannot achieve their hopes and goals," he said.

Photo: President Barack Obama after his speech at the US Military Academy at West Point (ANP/EPA)