BERLIN - Germany's foreign and interior ministers said the size of the European Union's police training mission in Afghanistan should be doubled, and offered in an article published Sunday to double Berlin's own contingent.
The EU has said that the mission should be fully up and running by April after months of difficulties. Nearly 200 police trainers are due to be deployed.
"After a difficult initial phase, the European police mission, Eupol, is finally finding its feet,'' Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble wrote in a joint commentary for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper.
"Beyond this, we advocate doubling the personnel of Eupol and will make corresponding proposals to our European colleagues,'' they added. "Germany will ... then offer 120 police officers in total to serve in Eupol Afghanistan, instead of the 60 already offered.''
The EU started its police training mission last June to supplement 500 American experts in the country training the Afghan police.
EU officials acknowledged at the time that the size of the mission fell well short of expectations, and since then the 27-member union has struggled to find personnel for the operation. It also has been dogged by funding and leadership problems.
The German ministers did not specify over what period of time they would like to see the mission's strength doubled.
NATO officials complain the weakness of the Afghan police force is undermining efforts to stabilize the country and say police training is lagging at least two years behind relatively successful efforts to train the Afghan army.
