2. februar 2012, 15:25 – opdateret 2. februar 2012, 15:31

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen rejected accusations ahead of the military alliance's defence minsters' meeting in Brussels, Thursday and Friday, that there's been a change in the withdrawal policy for international troops in Afghanistan.

Questions had been raised after US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta expressed doubts on his way to Brussels as to whether the US was planning to pull out next year, and not 2014 as agreed. France has also said it would push NATO to speed up its timeline for the handover of combat operations by a year, but the former Danish prime minister stressed that the alliance will adhere to plans to hand over security to local forces in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

"Our goal is for the Afghan forces to accept full responsibility for security throughout the country by the end of 2014," Mr Fogh Rasmussen said. "We will stick to the road map that was outlined at the NATO summit in Lisbon in 2010, according to which we will gradually hand over lead responsibility, a process that has been started and hopefully will be completed by the end of 2014."

There are 130,000 international troops in Afghanistan today, including 90,000 Americans. 750 are Danish.