German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that the timetable laid out by NATO for international troops to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 must be respected.

"The principle which applies for the German government is: we entered (Afghanistan) together, we will leave together," she said after comments by French president-elect Francois Hollande that he wanted to pull French troops out this year.

Merkel was addressing lawmakers in the Bundestag lower house of parliament ahead of a summit by NATO allies in the US city of Chicago on May 20-21.

"It will be a question during the NATO summit in Chicago of confirming in a concrete way the timetable fixed in 2010 in Lisbon for a withdrawal by the end of 2014," Merkel added.

"The good news is that the process of handing over responsibility (to the Afghan authorities) is progressing as we had planned," Merkel said.

France's 3,400 troops are the fifth largest contingent in the 130,000-strong US-led NATO force battling Taliban insurgents, but Kabul has downplayed the effect of their early departure.

Afghan forces are gradually taking over control of security in the country, with the goal of being in the lead nationwide next year and enabling most of the 130,000 foreign troops to leave by the end of 2014.

Germany is the third biggest troop supplier after the United States and Britain.

Obama, NATO chief agree Afghan focus for summit
Washington (AFP) May 9, 2012 - US President Barack Obama met with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Wednesday ahead of the upcoming NATO summit to agree to focus on the Afghan conflict at the meeting, the White House said.

At an Oval Office meeting, Obama and Rasmussem agreed the summit would be a time "reaffirm allied commitment to the transition framework" and a move from a combat role to support for "sufficient and sustainable Afghan forces."

At the summit, NATO will be faced with the thorny issue posed by French president-elect Francois Hollande pledge to speed up his country's pullout from Afghanistan.

The French Socialist leader campaigned on a promise to start bringing 3,300 French soldiers home this year, ending his country's combat role two years earlier than NATO's carefully crafted plan to fully hand security control to Afghans by 2014.

The White House has said the United States will push to modernize the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, deepen partnerships and hammer out details of the Afghanistan withdrawal at an summit.

Some 130,000 foreign troops, most from NATO nations, are fighting alongside 350,000 Afghan security personnel to help Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government reverse the Taliban-led insurgency.

Obama and the NATO chief also discussed the importance of NATO's partnerships with non-NATO countries, and agreed the summit should be a venue to highlight the need for allies to field NATO's defense capabilities in the future.