Italy backs calls for international Afghan meeting

VILNIUS (Reuters) - Italy threw its weight on Monday behind calls for an international conference on Afghanistan to deal with security issues and to get political commitments from the new Afghan government on future plans.

Germany and Britain called on Sunday for a U.N. meeting on Afghanistan this year. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, in a speech in Lithuania, said he proposed that a meeting be at foreign minister level and should look at security.

"Italy would like to see an international conference at foreign minister level, with our personal presence in Kabul, to set up a new compact between the new Afghan government and the international community," he said.

Such a meeting should take place at the end of this year or at the very beginning of 2010, he added.

The conference would aim at developing Afghan ownership of areas where there had been little progress, he said, citing governance, the fight against corruption and human rights.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, launching the initiative with France and having consulted with Washington and NATO, said their conference would set new targets for transferring security responsibilities to Afghan authorities ahead of reducing NATO troop levels.

(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; Writing by Patrick Lannin; Editing by Louise Ireland)