Dutch premier hints at end of Afghanistan presence

Outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende says he expects his country’s troops to withdraw from Afghanistan as planned.

The Sunday announcement comes a day after a row over extending the Netherlands’ military contribution to the NATO presence in Afghanistan dismantled the governing coalition.

“It is for parliament to say what it thinks on the subject,” said Balkenende, who handed in his resignation immediately after the government’s collapse.

“If nothing else comes in its place, then everything will come to an end,” he added.

Balkenende’s Christian Democrats party wanted to agree to a NATO request to keep soldiers in Afghanistan beyond their planned withdrawal from August 2010.

The idea was bitterly opposed by the Labor Party, which withdrew from the coalition.

Around 1,600 Dutch troops have been deployed in southern Afghanistan since 2006. Twenty-one of them have so far been killed.