London: Britain's opposition Conservatives, favourites to win an election due within six months, called on Tuesday for a fairer sharing out among NATO allies of the cost of waging war in Afghanistan.
The Conservatives' defence spokesman, Liam Fox, criticised NATO funding arrangements which he said meant that the more troops and equipment a country contributed to an operation the more it ended up paying.
Britain is set to raise its force in Afghanistan by 500 to 9,500, the second largest foreign contingent, putting more strain on defence spending at a time when the government is under pressure to rein in a ballooning budget deficit.
British troops have been engaged in their fiercest fighting of the eight-year-old conflict in recent months and the British death toll in Afghanistan this year has risen to 100.
Fox said Britain had spent 9.1 billion pounds ($14.85 billion) since 2001 funding its contribution to the NATO operation in Afghanistan.
"Why should the few carry the many in the alliance? ... I imagine the day is not far off when our taxpayers will be demanding a fairer system of finance for military operations within NATO," Fox said in a speech at the Chatham House think tank in London.
He noted that the Conservatives had previously proposed setting up an operational fund for NATO missions which every member state would have to contribute to.
Fox strongly defended the British mission in Afghanistan but suggested that British troops in the southern province of Helmand could be stretched too thinly to conduct a successful counter-insurgency strategy.
Bureau Report
First Published: Wednesday, December 09, 2009, 14:35