Diplomats: NATO to invite Montenegro to join alliance

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on Tuesday agreed to maintain the current 12,000 troops in Afghanistan through 2016.

The fact that the military alliance would proceed with its plans to keep the number of its troops in the country, emerged in September after Taliban fighters temporarily overran the northern city of Kunduz.

Foreign ministers from North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries were expected to invite Montenegro to join the military alliance despite Russia’s objection to the move, diplomats said, the latest sign of discord between the West and Moscow even as they both battle the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

“Germany will continue to be involved, also to ensure that we do not experience setbacks”, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Brussels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin bitterly complains of what he sees as North Atlantic Treaty Organisation encroachment, especially after the pro-Western Kiev government said it was looking to join the US-led alliance in the future.

Resolute Support is a non-combat operation that involves about 13,000 troops.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned that NATO presence in Afghanistan was important in order to stop the country from becoming “a safe haven for global terrorists”.

The foreign ministers are expected on Tuesday to keep Resolute Support largely unchanged next year. “We made a decision several years ago to fund the Afghan national security forces until 2017 and now we are aiming at making a new decision at our Summit in Warsaw to fund Afghan national security forces until 2020”, said Stoltenberg.

“The bottom line is, I think, that for NATO, Afghanistan remains unfinished business and despite… competing challenges closer to home, we have to follow through on those commitments”, the ambassador said.