Dutch troops to exit Afghanistan ‘as planned’

Following the collapse of his cabinet, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende says he expects his country’s troops to leave Afghanistan as planned.

The Netherlands will end its role in the Uruzgan province “in August this year,” Balkenende said on Dutch television Sunday.

The announcement comes only a day after the Dutch coalition government broke up after the two large parties failed to agree over the planned withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

The premier’s Christian Democrats Alliance wanted to agree to a NATO request to keep soldiers in Afghanistan beyond 2010, while the Labor Party, the government’s second largest party, bitterly opposed the plan.

Around 1,600 Dutch troops have been stationed in southern Afghanistan since 2006.

According to their mandate they should have returned home in 2008, but their deployment was extended by two years since no other NATO member state offered replacements.

In October, the Dutch parliament voted that the deployment must definitely end by August 2010.

However, the ruling party had called for an extension of the mission, and Marathon talks were launched on Friday over the issue.

In the early hours of Saturday, when the two parties failed to reach a compromise, Labor said it was pulling out of the coalition.

Later, Balkenende said there was no common ground and offered his cabinet’s resignation to Queen Beatrix by telephone.

The pullout announcement comes as NATO, US and Afghan forces are engaged in a large military offensive in the neighboring Helmand province.

So far some 21 Dutch soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan.