The strategy for Afghanistan is still on track, NATO's ambassador to Kabul insisted on Wednesday, despite admitting that a recent string of incidents had given it "a bit of a knock," according to dpa. NATO Senior Civilian Representative Simon Gass - a British career diplomat - was speaking days after 16 Afghans were allegedly shot dead by a rogue US soldier, prompting the Afghan parliament to say it had run out of patience with foreign troops. "Although events of this sort do cause a bit of a knock, I would not agree that bonds of trust between Afghanistan and (NATO's mission there) have been broken," he told reporters in Brussels via videolink from Kabul. Sunday's incident followed last month's burning of copies of the Koran at a US army base - which caused widespread riots - and the killing of two US officers at the Afghan Ministry of Interior. Such events "have of course dented confidence in some places and caused anger and shock among the Afghan people, but these are the acts of a very, very small number of individuals," Gass said. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans were working successfully with foreign troops, he said. The US-led NATO mission is training the Afghan army and police and is gradually transferring responsibilities, with a view to a complete hand-over by the end of 2014. Such a strategy is "the best way" to ensure that from that date Afghanistan "will be able to stand as a viable state," albeit with continuing international support, Gass said. The size of the foreign military presence needed after 2014 - thirteen years after the start of a US-led campaign there - will be a key topic for a NATO summit in Chicago on May 20-21. Gass dismissed speculation the United States might pull out faster in the wake of the latest violence. "I am not aware of any new proposal for drawing down troops," he said, speaking as US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta was visiting Afghanistan. To prevent further incidents, vetting procedures to catch Taleban infiltrators in the Afghan forces had been reinforced, while new training programmes are being developed to "improve cultural awareness on both sides," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said. "Our soldiers, generally, they want to behave respectfully to their Afghan hosts, but they very often do not come from backgrounds which have had any contact at all with the sort of culture which we have in Afghanistan," NATO's envoy to Kabul noted. "So we continue to train our troops in some of the key points in cultural sensitivity... We have to keep on repeating that message as often as we can. It is very much on the minds of military commanders," Gass stressed.
