Germany pushes for Afghan Troop Withdrawl

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier wants to create the conditions for an international troop withdrawal from Afghanistan within four years, his spokesman said.

Aides to Steinmeier, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s main challenger in Sept. 27 elections, have drafted 10 points for a possible pullout accord with the Afghan government, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jens Ploetner told reporters in Berlin today.

While Steinmeier won’t set a specific pullout date, he defined “a worthwhile aim over the next four years, and that worthwhile aim is to set conditions to begin an international withdrawal,” Ploetner said.

Afghanistan is heating up the election campaign after a German commander ordered a NATO air strike that may have killed civilians. Two tanker trucks seized by Taliban militants were targeted in the Sept. 4 strike, killing scores of people in an area where International Security Assistance Force troops are under German command.

The German Foreign Ministry plan includes possibly withdrawing about 500 German troops from the city of Faizabad by 2011 and turning the base into a training camp for local security forces, the German magazine Der Spiegel reports in this week’s edition.

Germany should “create the foundation for withdrawal from Afghanistan” during parliament’s next term, which runs for four years, Der Spiegel cited the position paper as saying. Polls show a majority of voters oppose Germany’s military engagement in Afghanistan.