More troops won't solve Afghan crisis -Italy PM

LUCCA, Italy, Nov 24 (Reuters) Sending more NATO troops into Afghanistan will not resolve the country's problems, Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi said today, days before NATO leaders discuss the issue at a summit.

''The military solution in Afghanistan will not succeed in getting a result, the problem must have a political solution,'' Prodi told a news conference after meeting French President Jacques Chirac.

''Let's be clear, no increase in the number of troops in Afghanistan will be able to resolve such an awful problem as this,'' he added.

NATO has 32,000 troops in Afghanistan but its top operational commander has said the force is operating at 85 per cent of full strength and needs 2,500 more troops as well as more helicopters and transport and reconnaissance capabilities.

NATO leaders meet in the Latvian capital Riga on November 28-29 and are due to commit the alliance to remaining in Afghanistan for the long haul, but diplomats have played down prospects of countries adding to the forces it currently has on the ground.

Italy has about 1,300 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO force. Prodi, the leader of a broad centre-left coalition who pulled troops out of Iraq, has resisted calls from the left of his alliance also to quit Afghanistan.

REUTERS LL RAI2145