PARIS, Oct 20: The withdrawal of French combat troops from Afghanistan would happen “a bit more quickly than anticipated”, France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Saturday.

Mr Fabius was interviewed by French television BFM about the troop withdrawal while on a visit to Kabul. “We can say that it is going well and I think even that it will happen a bit more quickly than anticipated,” he said.

“We have said by the end of December (2012) but I think that it can happen a bit earlier,” Mr Fabius said. The top French diplomat added that “some men will still remain” in the country, responsible mainly for repatriating equipment and the training of the Afghan army. “But there will be no more combat troops,” he stressed.

France is the fifth largest contributor to Nato’s International Security Assistance Force, which is due to pull out the vast majority of its 130,000 forces by the end of 2014. Before his election, President Francois Hollande vowed to speed up France’s pullout so it would be completed by the end of 2012 — a year earlier than Paris initially planned and two years before the Nato deadline.

There are currently around 2,550 French troops in Afghanistan compared with 4,000 a year ago.—AFP