Biden to consult NATO on Afghanistan and Pakistan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Joe Biden will consult NATO allies in Brussels next week as part of a strategy review on Afghanistan and Pakistan ordered by President Barack Obama as he shifts the U.S. military focus away from the Iraq war.
Biden will travel to Brussels to meet the North Atlantic Council, the 26-member alliance's main policy forum, and hold talks with NATO's secretary-general and senior European Union officials, his office said on Tuesday.
Obama last month approved the deployment of 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan as Washington and other NATO nations try to stabilize the country, where insurgent violence is at its highest since U.S-led forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001.
Other NATO countries are under pressure to boost troop commitments to the international operation in Afghanistan, though some are reluctant to do so.
With a top-to-bottom Afghanistan-Pakistan policy review under way since he took office last month, Obama said he would make announcements before a NATO summit in France in April, about "the direction the United States would like to go."
Biden's trip appeared aimed at laying groundwork for Obama's first European visit as president. "The purpose of his trip is to consult with allies on Afghanistan and Pakistan and to ensure that their views help inform the strategic review ordered by President Obama," Biden's office said.
Obama is seeking to shift military focus from the unpopular war in Iraq, which the Bush administration considered the central battlefront against Islamic militants, to the Afghan conflict, which he sees as a more pressing concern.
The United States makes up the bulk of a 70,000-strong international force, mostly from NATO countries, in Afghanistan.
(Editing by Chris Wilson)
