New Zealand will extend its deployment of 140 troops in Afghanistan for another year, then start withdrawing troops while posting civilian development specialists to the war-ravaged country, Prime Minister John Key said Tuesday. Key spoke after a three-day visit to Afghanistan, where he held talks with President Hamid Karzai and the commander of international forces, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. He also visited New Zealand troops serving in the capital, Kabul, and in Bamiyan province. New Zealand's 140-strong provincial reconstruction team of troops in Bamiyan had been expected to end their seven-year deployment in September, but Key said the posting will roll over for another year, then start reducing as civilian specialists are introduced. «Over time, the composition is going to change away from the military capability to a civilian capability, and that's the plan,» Key told reporters traveling with him in Afghanistan. «That will be starting in 2011.» Under the plan, about 50 troops would remain in Bamiyan, he said. Key said that a separate contingent of about 70 New Zealand commandos in Kabul that had been due to leave in March 2011 may now also be extended. «Gen. Stanley McChrystal makes it quite clear that this is a very important year for progress to be made and to demonstrate ... we are getting on top of the situation,» Key told New Zealand's National Radio from Dubai on Tuesday. McChrystal told New Zealand journalists in Kabul that he shied away from making direct requests to individual nations about their troop commitments in Afghanistan _ something he preferred to leave to political leaders _ but that continuity helped to reassure the Afghan people. «What I have found is continuity of commitment to the Afghan people is important,» McChrystal was quoted as saying by the New Zealand Press Association, which had a reporter traveling with Key.
