Maxime Bernier says Canada will consider it a "failure" if Ottawa does not get the 1,000 additional troops that it's seeking for the NATO mission in southern Afghanistan.
But the foreign affairs minister says he's optimistic that NATO will come up with more troops, although he's not sure if the commitment will be made at the meeting of NATO allies in Bucharest this week.
"I hope we will have our troops -- maybe at this meeting or maybe later," he told CTV's Canada AM on Monday.
"If we don't succeed (in getting) these 1,000 troops in the south, in Kandahar, it will be a failure for us, it will be a failure for the NATO mission because we cannot succeed in Afghanistan if we don't succeed in the south."
Bernier said he's hoping to "have good news" in the next couple of weeks. His cautious optimism follows on the heels of the Prime Minister Stephen Harper's statement last week that he is not positive that all of Canada's demands will be met at the NATO meeting in Romania, which is set to begin on April 2.
"I don't think we will necessarily finish that process at Bucharest but we will finish it in the very near future," Harper said.
The House of Commons recently voted to extend Canada's military mission in the war-torn region, as long as NATO provided 1,000 more troops and the Defence Department came up with battlefield helicopters and unmanned surveillance planes.
Over the weekend, reports indicated that Poland was ready to step up with more helicopters for the mission. Sources said the Poles may provide up to four more helicopters, as long as Canada pays the bill for their use.
Canada's demands for more troops will have to compete with other issues at the summit. U.S. President George Bush has indicated that he wants to expand NATO. The U.S. is hoping to bring Albania, Croatia, and Macedonia into the alliance. There is also word that Bush wants to put Georgia and the Ukraine on track for membership into the security alliance, but there is resistance from European powers such as Russia and Germany.
Russia has suggested that if Georgia and the Ukraine are taken off the table it may offer more cooperation when it comes to NATO's Afghan mission.
