NATO chief to study Afghan "Contact Group"

RIGA, Nov 29 (Reuters) NATO leaders asked the alliance's chief to make proposals for an international Contact Group of countries to assist Afghanistan's reconstruction, Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said today.

French President Jacques Chirac suggested the steering group, similar to the committee of nations that have coordinated diplomacy in the Balkans for more than a decade, to coordinate political, military and economic efforts to rebuilt Afghanistan, where NATO is involved in its toughest ground operation.

''Heads and state and government have tasked me to forward proposals on the possibility of a Contact Group,'' de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference after a NATO summit in Latvia.

Some US officials had voiced private misgivings about the idea because it might give Iran, with which Washington has no ties, a seat at the table alongside NATO, the United Nations and international financial institutions.

Reuters PDM VV1648