Vice-President Joe Biden warned that the situation in Afghanistan is "daunting" and that the world must take responsibily for the troubled region.

"We have a long, long way to go there," Biden said in a speech to House Democrats on Friday before leaving for a security conference in Munich, Germany.

"We've got to make Afghanistan the world's responsibility, not just the United States' responsibility," he said, adding that there is no solution in Afghanistan without including Pakistan.

More than 2,500 Canadians are serving in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, a volatile region where Taliban-led attacks against foreign troops are frequent. British, Dutch and American troops are also in the southern area as part of a multinational NATO-led task force.

Biden is expected to ask for more troop commitments from European NATO members during the conference, something the Europeans have been reluctant to do. The Harper government has said Canada's military mission in Afghanistan will end in 2011.

President Barack Obama has said he wants to refocus U.S. foreign policy from Iraq to Afghanistan and send at least 30,000 more American troops to the troubled region.

Peril remains

"The economic and security and social conditions there are daunting" and the United States has "geography, demography and history working against us," Biden said.

"The road remains incredibly, incredibly perilous" in both Afghanistan and Iraq, he said.

There has been real progress in Iraq but compared the situation to a footballl game, Biden said.

"We're on the 20-yard line moving in, but there's an awful lot to be done," he said.

The new U.S. administration must be "very deeply involved" not just in drawing down troops in a careful manner but also in helping Iraqis reach true political reconciliation, he said. "We're going to have to get in there and be much more aggressive in forcing them to deal with these issues," he said.

With files from the Associated Press