Afghanistan still on top of NATO agenda

NATO Chief has said that Afghanistan was still high on its agenda as Obama called NATO as an effective partner in the war against terrorism.

“Afghanistan is high on our agenda. Afghanistan is our biggest military operation ever,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday after his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama.

“It shows the importance of unity in North America and Europe, because our military operation in Afghanistan is a direct response to the terrorist attack against the United States on 9/11. And European, Canadian soldiers have fought together with the American soldiers in Afghanistan for many, many years,” he said.

“We had an excellent conversation about Afghanistan, in which NATO obviously has been an extraordinary partner with the United States,” Obama said.

“The coalition there continues to focus on assisting the government and the Afghan national security forces, building up capacity, pushing back against the Taliban, and helping Afghans to provide security for their own country and, hopefully, being able to arrive at some sort of political settlement that would end decades of conflict and violence there,” Obama continued.

The White House said that NATO has been an effective partner of the U.S. in the war against terrorism in Afghanistan.

“We welcome the valuable contribution that NATO has made to our efforts in Afghanistan. Much of the progress that we have made in Afghanistan would not have been possible without the significant contributions that NATO has made to that effort,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has told reporters.

“It is that effective partnership that allowed the United States to succeed in decimating core Al-Qaeda, that previously operated with virtual impunity in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region.

“And we’ve made enormous progress in helping the Afghan government begin to assume much more control for the security situation in their own country,” he said.

“The United States and our military personnel in Afghanistan are going to continue to focus on their two missions, which are counter terrorism and training Afghan security forces,” Earnest added.