France will start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, following a timetable similar to the one U.S. President Barack Obama announced, the French president's office said Thursday.
"This withdrawal will be done in consultation with our allies and with the Afghan authorities," the statement from Nicolas Sarkozy's office said.
All French troops could be out of Afghanistan by 2013, French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet told France Info radio Thursday.
Longuet declined to give specifics, citing the "safety of our soldiers and the people they protect.
"So we cannot say right now it will happen from such a place or it will be this type of troop because we have no information to give to our adversaries, the Taliban," he said.
But he said that NATO had planned on "a complete transition in 2014," and that "what has emerged today is that we will undoubtedly gain a year on this calendar."
France has 3,935 troops in Afghanistan, according to the NATO mission there.
Obama said Wednesday that the U.S. would withdraw 33,000 U.S. troops by September 2012. That will leave just under 70,000 Americans there.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, whose country has the second largest number of foreign troops in Afghanistan, welcomed Obama's announcement.
He said the British will keep "force levels in Afghanistan under constant review," adding: "I have already said there will be no UK troops in combat roles in Afghanistan by 2015 and, where conditions on the ground allow, it is right that we bring troops home sooner."
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