Dutch Cabinet deadlocked over Afghanistan mission

(AP) — The Dutch Cabinet was deadlocked Wednesday over extending the Netherlands' mission with NATO in Afghanistan, and it appears likely to reduce its 1,600 troop presence there.

Deputy Prime Minister Wouter Bos said his Labor Party will oppose a formal NATO request to remain in the restive southern province of Uruzgan. The Dutch mission ends in August.

The departure of the Netherlands would be a blow to hopes that NATO's European members will expand operations in Afghanistan before beginning to withdraw in 2011.

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and his Christian Democrats want to extend the mission for a year, possibly in reduced form.

But Bos' highly public stand Wednesday makes it unlikely without risking a political crisis that could bring down the coalition government.

"The promise we made to the Dutch voter two years ago must be kept, that the last Dutch solider must be gone from Uruzgan by the end of the year," Bos told reporters.

Balkenende said Bos did not speak for the Cabinet, and his comments were not the country's official response to the request sent by NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen this month.

"We have a great international responsibility to take the request of the secretary general of NATO seriously," Balkenende said.

Both Bos and Balkenende declined to answer questions about whether the dispute has the potential to cause the fall of the government.

Parliament has instructed the Cabinet to decide on Afghanistan by March 1.

The current Dutch mission began in August 2006. In all, 21 Dutch soldiers have been killed in Uruzgan.