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German government coalition defends Afghanistan offensive
Jul 23, 2009, 10:35 GMT
Berlin - Germany's governing coalition parties on Thursday defended the country's largest military offensive in Afghanistan to date.
Defence spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), Bernd Siebert, told German radio station hr-Info that the Taliban had to be 'fought as terrorists and criminals.'
The Social Democrats' foreign policy expert Rolf Muetzenich said Germany's mandate allowed military measures to help return stability to the region, in an interview on WDR state radio.
Defence officials in Berlin had confirmed the previous day that Germany's military was fighting in its largest offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan to date, in response to increased Taliban attacks in the north of the country.
The Greens' defence expert Winfried Nachtwei has accused the government of glossing over its activities in Afghanistan.
'Soldiers who I recently spoke to in Kunduz speak of war,' Nachtwei told German daily Muenstersche Zeitung.
Jung had previously attempted to quell a growing debate in Germany about whether or not its Afghan mission could be called a 'war.'
'We are conducting a stabilization deployment, and not a war. This discussion should be ended,' he said.
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