By Randall Palmer
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's minority Conservativegovernment, bowing to a key opposition demand, said on Thursdayits military mission in southern Afghanistan will end in 2011and would not be extended.
The compromise with the main opposition Liberal Party,which said the new motion was "not a deal-breaker" andsignalled its intention to back it, eliminated the chance of anelection over the issue.
"While reiterating our commitment to the U.N. mandate onAfghanistan, it affirms that our commitment is not open-ended,"Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the Conference of DefenceAssociations.
The 2,500-strong mission in the violent southern Kandaharregion is currently due to end in February 2009. The governmenthad initially proposed extending this to 2011, at which timethe mission would be reviewed.
The Liberals had said this was unacceptable and demanded afixed end date of February 2011. An amended motion presented bythe government on Thursday committed Canada to notifying NATOthat its presence in Kandahar would end as of July 2011 andtroops would be redeployed from the south by December 2011.
The House of Commons is due to debate the motion nextMonday and Tuesday and hold a confidence vote on it in March.
"It seems clear that we have reached a consensus which canbe submitted to Parliament for ratification," Harper said inFrench.
The Liberals said the government had met most of theirdemands, especially a clear end to the mission rather than arenewable commitment.
"We may ask for clarifications here and there, but by andlarge, we're happy with it since they've accepted 95 percent ofour wording and they've accepted our ... principles," saidLeslie Swartman, a spokeswoman for Liberal leader StephaneDion.
Harper's government could still fall over its February 26budget, but the Liberals, lagging in the polls, seem to havelittle appetite for triggering a sudden election.
The Conservatives won the January 2006 election, endingmore than 12 years of Liberal rule.
Harper made it clear last month that Canada would extendthe mission to 2011 only if NATO committed 1,000 more troops tothe Kandahar region and Ottawa obtained military helicoptersand unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles.
"In recent days I have contacted the leaders of major NATOcountries and advised them that Canada's continued role in theregion is contingent on greater support from our allies," saidHarper, who is unhappy at what he sees as the reluctance ofsome member nations to commit troops to southern Afghanistan.
The topic of troops in Afghanistan is set to dominate asummit of NATO leaders in early April.
So far, 78 Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan andpolls show the public is split on the mission there.
Harper, whose government has pumped billions of dollarsinto the armed forces since 2006, also said Ottawa would boostthe automatic annual increase in defence spending to 2 percentfrom 1.5 percent starting in the 2011-12 financial year.
(Additional reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by RobWilson)
