Norway won’t send soldiers to southern Afghanistan

This is a video of an anti Iraq war demonstration in Oslo in Norway, 18 March 2006.

Translated from the Provinciale Zeeuwse Courant daily in the Netherlands:

Norwegians refuse to help the Dutch in Uruzgan

by our correspondent Windy Kester

OSLO – Norway refuses to help the Netherlands with its military mission in Afghanistan. Both countries talked about that at ministerial level, after a Dutch request.

The Norwegian secretary of Defence, Espen Barth Eide, has confirmed that the Netherlands has contacted Norway and other countries, wanting them to take over military tasks in the Afghan province of Uruzgan. …

Norway is in the north of Afghanistan. Six hundred Norwegian soldiers are in Mazar-a-Sharif city and at the airport of the capital Kabul.

The Norwegian coalition government are very divided about the mission.

The biggest party, the social democratic ‘Arbeiderpartiet’, has no objections against moving Norwegian troops to the dangerous south. Their Leftist coalition partner, SV [Socialist Left] is strongly against the war in the south and sees them as part of the [so called] US American war against international terrorism. The party also has internal divisions about Norwegian participation in the Isaf mission [in the north].

Australian soldier dies in Afghanistan: here.