NATO allies gather in Brussels over Afghanistan withdrawal

The two days of talks that began Wednesday, are expected to focus on the pullout of troops from Afghanistan and come amid the steadily rising violence inside the war-ravaged country.

The meeting comes three days after Taliban launched a series of coordinated attacks on embassies, government buildings, and US-led military bases in Kabul and three eastern cities.

The wave of coordinated attacks on Sunday left 51 people dead.

The Wednesday meeting precedes another that is to be hosted by the US in May 2012 in efforts to map out a two-year phased withdrawal of 130,000 troops from the Asian country.

NATO members agreed in November 2010 to gradually hand over security to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014.

NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said on Monday that “clearly we still face security challenges, this was not the first such attack and I do not expect it to be the last.”

Earlier, Australia said it would begin pulling out its troops from Afghanistan later in 2012, one year earlier than planned.

In a Tuesday speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said that the troop withdrawal will kick off later this year and will be completed by mid-2013.

Meanwhile, a recent German poll indicates that the majority of Afghan people desire the early withdrawal of US-led forces from their country.

The poll, conducted by the Institute for Social Research and Statistical Analysis, finds that 60 percent of the 2,000 respondents participating in the survey supported the pullout of foreign forces from Afghanistan.

Despite the presence of tens of thousands of US-led forces in Afghanistan, insecurity continues to climb across the Asian country.