Krakow, Poland - US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Friday said European nations were providing "significant" contributions to NATO's operations in Afghanistan and that any further help on the civilian side would be welcomed.

"We must intensify our efforts to bring security and stability to Afghanistan," Gates said, and it is "critical that the alliance provides enough troops to ensure that the August elections are credible."

Krakow, Poland - US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Friday he remained hopeful that a "reasonable" deal could yet be reached with Kyrgyz officials preventing the closure of the United States' only air base in Central Asia, which supplies US and NATO operations in Afghanistan.

"I continue to believe that this is not a closed issue and there remains the potential at least to reopen this issue with the Kyrgyzs and reach a new agreement," Gates said at a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Krakow, Poland.

Krakow, Poland - NATO defence ministers were meeting in Krakow on Friday to discuss the future of the alliance, including the thorny issue of further expansion towards Russia's borders.

The first round of talks in the snowy Polish city was devoted to defining the alliance's strategies for the 21st century and improving the way it works as it gets ready to welcome new member states and see the possible return of France to its command structure.

Warsaw  - Some 300 people held a largely peaceful anti-NATO protest in Krakow's main square as the alliance's defence ministers met in the southern Polish city.

The protests were organized by the Stop War Initiative, the August 80 trade union and the Anarchist Federation, reported the Polish Press Agency PAP.

"We're against NATO's politics, and we demand pulling out forces from Afghanistan and a halt to the arms race," protester Katarzyna Puzon told PAP. "We find it equally absurd to be spending public money in the times of crisis."

Krakow, Poland - The Afghan army is leading an increasing number of counter-insurgency operations, but NATO needs to provide it with far more trainers if it is to meet its target of expanding to 134,000 by 2010, alliance officials said Thursday.

"We are frankly not where we had hoped to be by now," Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told the NATO defence ministers meeting in Krakow, Poland.

Krakow, Poland - NATO is to launch a second anti-piracy naval mission off the coast of Somalia in the spring, the alliance's spokesman said in Krakow on Thursday.

James Appathurai said defence ministers meeting in the Polish city had given their broad backing to the mission, whose details would be worked out during the coming weeks.

Four NATO warships and several helicopters patrolled the Gulf of Aden and escorted World Food Program vessels carrying aid to Africa on behalf of the UN between October and December. The mission helped deliver 30,000 metric tonnes of humanitarian aid to Somalia, NATO said.