Australian PM commits to Afghanistan; rules out troop increase

The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has committed his country to "the long haul" in the battle against terrorism in Afghanistan while saying that Australia's current troop strength in the war-torn country will not be increased. Mr Rudd was speaking to a Washington audience as part of his world trip.

Speaking later at a joint press conference in Brussels with EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, Mr Rudd called for "proper burden sharing" from all countries fighting Taliban forces and asked for different crops to be introduced for farmers to end the country's reliance on its huge opium production, much of the profits of which find their way to fund terrorist organisations.

Talking ahead of the NATO summit in Bucharest, the first time an Australian leader has attended such a gathering, Mr Rudd did not specify which nations he believed should be contributing more to the effort but stressed he would be speaking for Australian troops during the talks in Bucharest.

"We have Australian troops on the ground in Afghanistan. We have troops who are in harm's way and we owe them everything in our upcoming meetings in Bucharest," he said.

Regular Australian troops have been assisting a Dutch reconstruction operation in the southern province of Uruzgan.