The North Atlantic Treaty Organization refused to comment Wednesday on a Canadian government-appointed panel's report which has proposed Canada withdraw from Afghanistan unless allies contribute 1,000 more troops to help Canadian soldiers battle the Taliban in the deadly Kandahar region.
The European media, meanwhile, has largely ignored the report produced by an independent panel headed by former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley.
NATO spokesperson James Appathurai said it is too soon to comment on the Manley panel's recommendations or its stinging criticism of the campaign against Taliban insurgents.
The (Canadian) government has not taken a position. The Parliament is not taking a position on these recommendations," Appathurai told reporters during a briefing at alliance headquarters in Brussels. "So NATO will certainly not take a position at this time."
He said the report, which already has been reviewed by Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, was "thorough (and) very well written."
The European media responded to the report with a yawn. Of the numerous French, British, German, Italian and Spanish newspapers available at a downtown Paris newsstand, only the London-based Financial Times mentioned the Manley report. The story was on the bottom of page six. Source...
