White House Expects Allies to Increase Military Presence in Afghanistan

01:25 GMT, 11 July 2018

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The United States does not intend to change significantly its strategy for Afghanistan adopted in 2017 and hopes that its allies will increase military presence in the country, the press service of the US National Security Council (NSC) told Sputnik on Wednesday.

Sputnik

On Tuesday, Reuters news agency reported that the United States intended to change its strategy for Afghanistan in the coming months.

"We regularly conduct reviews of our strategies examining their effectiveness and making necessary adjustments to ensure U.S. resources are being used in the most efficient ways possible. We are not planning an overarching review of our core strategy, like the one conducted last summer," a representative of the NSC said, stressing that the US Administration remained committed to the current strategy.

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"Allies and partners have made significant increases in contributions over the past year, and two new operational partners joined NATO's mission. That said, we expect Allies and partners to carry their fair share of the burden in Afghanistan by continuing to increase troop and financial contributions," he added.

Previously, Donald Trump nominated Lt. General Austin Miller to replace General John Nicholson to command US Forces-Afghanistan, a move which cam after the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said that the United States has failed to stabilize Afghanistan despite 16 years of occupation and spending $4.7 billion on stabilization initiatives.

Trump has repeatedly pressed other members of NATO to meet their annual defense spending obligations in the alliance complaining about EU members of NATO paying less than their fair share.