Germany's opposition center-left Social Democrats (SPD) are to hold a conference to discuss Germany's domestically unpopular military presence in Afghanistan. The January 22 debate will take place just one week ahead of an international summit on Afghanistan to be hosted by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London.

The SPD said in a statement on its website that it would stage its own conference because Germany's incumbent coalition government, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, had not held an effective debate on the country's engagement in Afghanistan.

"Since the beginning of the Afghanistan mission the SPD has insisted on the fact that political and economic development must be at the center of the international engagement," the statement said.

"The aim must be to strengthen the direct responsibility of Afghanistan and create the conditions for an end to the military engagement … the (current German) coalition has avoided this debate up to now," it added.

Speakers at the SPD event are to include Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar and the European Union's newly installed top foreign affairs official, Catherine Ashton.

Prior to a general election in Germany in September last year, the Social Democrats were part of the so-called Grand Coalition with Merkel's Christian Democrats. Whilst part of the government the SPD's current leader and former Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, formulated a 10-point plan for withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Coalition plans

The German government says it intends to unveil a new strategy at the international conference on Afghanistan in London, which opens on January 28.

German Defense Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg told the daily newspaper, the Leipziger Volkszeitung, this week that concrete plans would be announced in London, and that they would concern more than just new troop levels.

"Germany has not changed its stance: a stable future for Afghanistan is not something that can be achieved by military means alone. We will focus our concentration on civilian reconstruction efforts so that Afghanistan can begin to establish its own security and determine its own future," he said.

The London conference will be co-hosted by the British and Afghan governments and representatives from more than 60 countries will attend.

dfm/dpa/AFP

Editor: Tony Dunham