Pat Dollard

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German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates sought on Saturday to soothe tensions with Germany over NATO’s Afghan mission, saying relations would not suffer if Berlin did not provide more troops.

Germany reiterated it had no plans to boost troop levels or shift them to other parts of Afghanistan despite U.S. pressure, denying a magazine report to the contrary.

Gates has pressed Berlin and other allies to provide more troops and other resources for the 43,000-strong NATO force battling Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

The pressure has caused problems for the German government, as it tries to maintain good relations with Washington but faces broad opposition to the Afghan mission among voters.

“Any additional numbers from any country are most appreciated,” Gates told reporters at a security conference in the southern German city of Munich.

“Maybe some will be able to help. It certainly will not be seen as a negative in our bilateral relations if some are not able to do more.”

Earlier, Germany’s Der Spiegel weekly said the government was planning to expand the number of soldiers it can send to Afghanistan by 1,000 to 4,500 and broaden their base of operations from the north to the west.

The magazine said Merkel planned to make the proposal at a NATO summit in April in order to deflect pressure from Washington to send German forces to the south.

But a government spokesman said: “There are no such considerations in the Chancellery.”

“IRRITATED” BY LETTER

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told ARD television he had been “irritated” by the tone of a letter Gates sent to Berlin and other allies last month asking them to do more in Afghanistan.

But he said he had been reassured after talks with the Pentagon chief in Munich.

Gates sent the letters after deciding to send 3,200 marines to Afghanistan in March and April.

Washington has pressed not only for more troops but also for more members of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to go to the violent south, where U.S., British, Dutch and Canadian troops are doing the bulk of the fighting.

Gates said the Iraq war had shown that it was important to have sufficient forces to fight insurgents. Washington sent an extra 30,000 troops to Iraq last year and violence there declined substantially.

“What we have seen in Iraq is that numbers do matter,” he said.

“As soon as the ISAF forces leave, sometimes the Taliban come back so we need to have enough troops there (so) that once these areas are cleared we can hold them so economic development and civil development can proceed,” he said.

A parliamentary mandate which expires in mid-October sets an upper limit of 3,500 German forces in Afghanistan.

German officials said the government was considering extending the mandate by 15 to 18 months instead of the usual one-year period in order to keep the issue out of the next federal election, due in the autumn of 2009.

The Afghanistan deployment is highly controversial within Germany, where many people remain averse to foreign military operations over 60 years after the end of World War Two.

Merkel’s awkward “grand coalition” of conservatives and Social Democrats (SPD) was able to renew the mandate last year, but only after a fierce debate in parliament and within some parts of the SPD.

(Reporting by Noah Barkin, Sabine Siebold, Kerstin Gehmlich, Erik Kirschbaum; Editing by Richard Meares)