The war in Afghanistan will be high on the agenda when the top US military officer meets his Canadian counterpart on Tuesday amid an increasingly effective Taliban insurgency.
The visit to Ottawa by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, comes at a pivotal moment as President Barack Obama's administration reviews US strategy in Afghanistan in the face of an emboldened Taliban and weak Kabul government.
Mullen was scheduled to meet Canada's chief of defence staff, General Walter Natynczyk, as well as Defence Minister Peter McKay in Ottawa, officials said.
More than 100 Canadians have died in Afghanistan since the start of its mission in 2002, with the toll rising after Canadian troops deployed to the country's volatile south in 2006.
The Afghan mission is a sensitive issue in Canada, where the government has committed to stay in the country only to the end of 2011 after a political deal.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has suggested that Washington would like to see Ottawa extend its mission but Canadian ministers and military officers have insisted the deadline is firm.
Opponents of the war in Canada point to the casualty toll and the financial cost of the deployment while even supporters of the military mission voice resentment that some NATO members have avoided sending troops for combat in Afghanistan.
Canada's defence minister, McKay, said at a security conference in Munich over the weekend that members of the alliance needed to fully commit to the mission in Afghanistan, saying it was "exactly the sort of mission that NATO must be able to deliver in the 21st century."
Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States have troops on the frontline in the war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgents, but other NATO allies argue that reconstruction is as important as combat and refuse to redeploy.
Canada has about 2,750 soldiers serving among the nearly 70,000 international troops in Afghanistan under NATO and US command.
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