The Conservatives are downplaying expectations that a deal to secure additional NATO troops for the Afghan mission will be made at a summit in Bucharest this week.

A member of the Canadian Forces looks over Afghan workers near Masum Ghar in the Zhari district of Kandahar province.
(Department of National Defence)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived Tuesday morning in the Romanian capital, where meetings are scheduled for Thursday and Friday. Canada is expected to ask the alliance to send more troops and equipment to southern Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, French Prime Minister François Fillon told deputies in the French parliament that the government may contribute "several hundred" more troops, the first time a senior French official publicly gave a troop figure.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay told reporters travelling on the prime minister's plane that Canada has done everything it can to convince its allies to help but downplayed expectations that a commitment would be made by week's end.

"We've done everything humanly possible to set up those conditions that we would get results but keep in mind that we have until February '09 to fulfil those commitments," MacKay said.

"As far as getting those commitments for every single piece of equipment and personnel, that remains to be seen."

Before heading to Bucharest, Harper told the House of Commons on Monday that discussions with NATO allies to get more troops and equipment in order to extend the mission until 2011 "continue to go very well."

But he would only say he's confident those conditions will be met "in the not too distant future."

Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier also suggested on Monday there's no rush to find a NATO partner, saying the matter could be settled "in a couple of weeks."

"We have until February 2009 to find more troops and to find the equipment that we need, so we still have time," Bernier said.

Last month, the Tories, with support from the Liberals, passed a motion that would keep Canadian soldiers in Kandahar until 2011.

The motion was contingent on two recommendations of the Manley report on Canada's role in Afghanistan: that NATO allies provide 1,000 extra troops and that Ottawa secure access to unmanned surveillance drones and large helicopters to transport Canadian troops around the region.

"I have always been clear if our conditions are not met, we would withdraw," Harper told the Commons ON Monday.

French president pledged troops

There has been talk of a plan that would see French soldiers head to eastern Afghanistan to replace American soldiers, with the Americans shifting to support the Canadians in the south.

In a speech in Britain last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged to bolster France's troop strength in Afghanistan, saying he would confirm the offer during the NATO meeting in Bucharest. He did not specify a number, but news reports have said the plan would add 1,000 troop reinforcements.

But more than two-thirds of people questioned in a French poll published Tuesday say they oppose Sarkozy's plan to increase the number of French troops in Afghanistan.

Sixty-five per cent said that the United States and its allies are wrong to lead a war in Afghanistan against fighters linked to the former Taliban regime and members of al-Qaeda. Seventeen per cent said they support the effort.

Speaking in France's National Assembly on Tuesday, Fillon said Afghanistan plays a large part "in our security, and thus our freedom.

"The deployment could be of the order of several hundred extra soldiers."

Fillon did not say what type of forces they would be but that they could be called upon to get more involved in command operations, training the Afghan army and security and reconstruction efforts in the provinces. He did not specify where.

Other NATO countries, including Spain and Germany, refuse to deploy troops in Kandahar, where the insurgency is most dangerous.

Poland, meanwhile, appears ready to increase its offer of helicopter support for Canadian troops in Kandahar.

With files from the Canadian Press and the Associated Press