By Sue Pleming
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in London for talks with British leaders on Afghan strategy, said only a small number of NATO nations had troops in the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown told parliament he wanted NATO allies at a summit in Bucharest in April to commit to a fair sharing of the task in Afghanistan.
Some NATO countries have bristled at public criticism from Washington over the refusal of a number of alliance members to position their forces in the more dangerous south of Afghanistan to fight Islamist Taliban insurgents.
That means most of the fighting against the Taliban is shouldered by Canada, Britain, the United States and the Netherlands. They all want others to contribute more.
The Taliban, ousted from power by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, fought back strongly last year.
Two U.S. non-governmental reports last week said Afghanistan risked becoming a failed state and a haven for global terrorism without new U.S. and international efforts to beat the Taliban.
Western efforts in Afghanistan have been fragmented and Rice said she hoped a new international envoy could be appointed soon to coordinate this work. In January, Afghan President Hamid Karzai rejected politician Paddy Ashdown for the job.
Rice, who will hold talks in London with Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband, said she believed another European was likely to get the post.
"It is bumpy and there is a lot of maturing that the alliance is having to do ... Frankly, counter-insurgency is really hard for any traditional military, let alone (NATO)," said Rice.
Canada has said it would pull out its forces early next year if other NATO countries did not send in more.
(Additional reporting by Adrian Croft; Editing by Charles Dick)
