German lawmakers Friday prolonged the country's contribution to the NATO-led Afghanistan mission by another year. The vote was 420 to 116 in favor, with 23 abstentions. With nearly 5,000 soldiers on the ground, Germany has the third-largest force with the International Security Assistance Force after the United States and the United Kingdom.

Also Friday, Dutch lawmakers in The Hague agreed to dispatch 545 police trainers to Afghanistan. The decision is a careful return to Afghanistan a year after the Dutch government collapsed over when to withdraw troops from the war-torn country. The pullout was completed last summer.

The German decision extended the mandate to Jan. 31, 2012, and boosted troop levels to a maximum of 5,350 soldiers.

In a nod to what polls suggest is the waning popularity of the mission with the German populace, the motion put to the Bundestag stresses that Berlin aims to start reducing troop numbers from the end of this year if security improves.

"We want to begin this year to hand over responsibility at regional level and then at the end of the year to start to reduce the presence of the Bundeswehr," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle was quoted as saying by the BBC. "And we want to make sure that by 2014 there is no longer any need for German troops in Afghanistan."

The Netherlands have gone through this dilemma already. Under pressure to contribute to what observers say is the most important mission in NATO's history, the Dutch center-right minority government rounded up the backing of three small opposition parties to green-light the police training mission.

They had up to 2,000 troops stationed in central Afghanistan until 2010 but a worsening security and increasing casualties rendered the mission deeply unpopular at home. When the government tried to push through the extension of the mission, it collapsed.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, eager to prevent a similar development, said his government would make sure that the police trainers make a civil and not a military contribution.

"We need to be sure that if we train people as police members, they are indeed deployed as police members," Rutte told Dutch parliamentarians. "If this doesn't happen, or fails, I will propose to end the mission."

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