NATO chief hopes for Nov (to start) Afghanistan handover deal: report

[maddezmom]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - The head of NATO said on Monday he hoped alliance states would agree at a Lisbon summit to start handing over security responsibility in Afghanistan to local authorities next year.

Allied military and civilian deaths have hit record levels in recent months, with violence at its worst since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.

"I do not say that the security situation in Afghanistan is satisfactory, because it definitely isn't. But there is progress," Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Danish TV2 News.

"And I hope that we at the NATO summit in November will be able to decide to begin to gradually hand over responsibility in 2011," he said on the eve of an official visit to his home country Denmark.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67T5XW20100830