ISTANBUL, Feb 5, 2010 (AFP) - France has decided to send around 80 military trainers to Afghanistan to help build up the national security forces, French Defence Minister Herve Morin said Friday.
    The personnel will include one mentoring and liason team and instructors to train Afghans in the use of armoured vehicles, he told reporters in Istanbul, Turkey, on the sidelines of talks between NATO defence ministers.
    "I indicated that, given the considerable training needs, France would provide additional means," Morin said, adding that it would bring Paris's contigent in Afghanistan to "3,800 or 3,850" troops.
    "We will also send an additional team of instructors into the area of French responsibility (in eastern Afghanistan) to assist the last Afghan battalion" needing trainers, he said.
    On Thursday, the United States urged its NATO partners to find around 4,000 extra trainers to help build up the Afghan army and police force as part of alliance moves to start handing them responsibility for national security.
    Germany announced last week that it would send up to 850 more troops to Afghanistan, as its focus shifts more towards the training effort.