German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her cabinet voted on Tuesday to extend the country's participation in a NATO-led military mission in Afghanistan for 14 months, a move that caused intense debate among parliamentarians.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during a meeting of the German federal parliament in Berlin on Tuesday. (Michael Sohn/Associated Press)The decision means German troops will remain in the war-torn country until after next year's national election in Germany, scheduled for September.

The cabinet also voted to increase the number of troops it can send to Afghanistan by 1,000 to 4,500.

The cabinet's decision still has to survive a vote later this month in Germany's lower house of parliament, in which Merkel's Conservatives and her Social Democrat coalition partners have a commanding majority.

Extension a contentious decision

Debate on the extension began in earnest later Tuesday, with lawmakers offering widely varying interpretations of the decision.

Monika Knoche from the far-left Left Party said the German government was bowing to U.S. interests over Afghanistan.

"We need an exit strategy for Afghanistan. And a first step would be a withdrawal of the German army," she told parliament. "More military means more insecurity and more violence. Afghanistan urgently needs a peace process."

Kerstin Mueller from the Greens said Germany had to focus its Afghanistan strategy on civilian efforts.

"Instead of more soldiers, civilian reconstruction must be the priority," Mueller said. "It's not enough to slightly increase civilian reconstruction aid. We need a massive rise."

The war is generally unpopular in Germany and has caused fragmentation in the political left. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Social Democrats' nominee to challenge Merkel in next year's election, told Parliament on Tuesday: "The extension of (NATO's) ISAF mission does not mean we say 'Let's continue as before.'"

"[The new mandate] is fitted to next year's needs — more soldiers, a focus on the training of Afghan soldiers and police, more spending on civilian reconstruction. Because we want the people in Afghanistan to feel, see and live the progress," he said.

Germany has come under increasing pressure from its allies in the international community to send more troops to Afghanistan to help with the NATO-led mission. There are currently about 3,300 German troops serving in the relatively calm north, part of a NATO force that numbers about 50,000. Of those, Canada has contributed about 2,500 soldiers, mostly serving in the volatile southern province of Kandahar.

With files from Reuters and the Associated Press