By Alexandra Hudson THE HAGUE, Oct 3 (Reuters) - The Dutch government, under pressure to keep its troops in volatile southern Afghanistan, wants NATO to take responsibility for the region's security after its mandate expires at the end of August 2008. The Dutch have failed to respond to entreaties from NATO to stay on longer and are even contemplating a pull-out amid international wrangling about how best to shoulder responsibility for security in the country. "NATO has asked us to stay there and now we are in a period of consultation with NATO but still all options are open, even the option of withdrawal," Defence Minister Eimert van Middelkoop told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. "Of course we are a member of NATO and we are willing to think with them but the first responsibility is with NATO." Van Middelkoop sent an extra 80 soldiers to Afghanistan last week to help deal with intensifying fighting by Taliban insurgents and after another Dutch fatality -- the 11th of the mission. Five Dutch soldiers were injured on Tuesday in an attack on their patrol, the government said. A Dutch pull-out could see the Canadians follow suit. They are stationed in Kandahar in the south and must also decide whether to extend their mandate which runs until February 2009. The issue is likely to feature prominently at an informal NATO meeting in the Dutch town of Noordwijk on Oct. 24-25. Between 1,500 and 1,700 Dutch troops are serving in Afghanistan, and public pressure to withdraw is growing, as is concern about whether NATO allies are pulling their weight. Van Middelkoop said he was confident that if the Dutch government did decide to prolong the mission they would get public and parliamentary support. The Dutch have a well-equipped military and a tradition of punching above their weight on the international stage, but it was only after long and agonised debate that the Dutch decided in 2006 to commit troops to the Afghan province of Uruzgan. Failure to do so could have proved a major embarrassment to Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Dutch secretary general of NATO, who said recently he could not imagine the Dutch would now leave. TALIBAN HEARTLAND The minister dismissed talk the Dutch had underestimated the nature of the mission and now wanted to bail out. "The Dutch government and parliament knew exactly what they were getting when they accepted Uruzgan. It is the heartland of the Taliban. It was for very quiet for almost a year in the province, but now ... the Taliban is stretching us," he said. "We knew that alongside reconstruction work we have to fight, we do it." The Taliban are leading a dogged insurgency after being ousted from power in 2001. Last month Germany, one of almost 40 countries in the International Security Assistance Force, said it had no plans to change the mandate that confines its soldiers to the north. Van Middelkoop noted some countries were active in the more stable north with more military than the Dutch had in the south. He added he saw a need for an international coordinator in Afghanistan, under the authority of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who could operate between the nearly 50,000 troops in the country under the command of NATO and the U.S. military. "We need someone with an overview: sometimes that is missing. Most of the debates on Afghanistan are conducted within national parameters."
