France and Germany fully endorsed President Barack Obama's new Afghan war strategy on Saturday but firmly resisted sending more combat troops in a rift that overshadowed symbols of unity at NATO 60th-anniversary summit, AP reported. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Obama and some two dozen other NATO leaders met French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the halfway point on the Europe bridge in a symbolic departure from the enmity that once tore apart Europe. Amid public antipathy to an expansion of Europe's role in Afghanistan, European leaders remain deeply skeptical about whether more troops can stabilize a country devastated by decades of war. NATO's ability to succeed there is seen as a crucial test of the power and relevance of the alliance founded to counterbalance the Soviet Union but now struggling against a rising insurgency far beyond its borders. Sarkozy and Merkel again stressed their support for the new strategy on Afghanistan that Obama was formally unveiling at the summit.
