French PM visits Afghanistan

Thursday, February 11, 2010
KABUL: French Prime Minister Francois Fillon flew into Kabul on a previously unannounced visit Thursday for talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and to meet French soldiers fighting the Taliban.

Fillon attended a repatriation ceremony on the tarmac of Kabul airport for the remains of a 20-year-old French soldier killed in combat in Afghanistan this week, his aides said.

He is scheduled to meet Karzai at the heavily guarded presidential palace in the Afghan capital and hold talks with General Stanley McChrystal, the overall commander of the estimated 113,00 NATO and US forces in Afghanistan.

France has lost 40 soldiers in action since the 2001 US-led invasion to bring down the Taliban regime. France has 3,750 soldiers assigned to the NATO operation, 3,500 of them on Afghan soil.

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