The political stakes are high for the U.S. president, who will go before voters in November with tens of thousands more troops in Afghanistan than when we took office. His emphasis will remain that he is methodically winding down the war after closing out the one in Iraq; U.S. voters desperate for better economic times have long stopped approving of the war mission.
NATO said it will keep providing "long-term political and practical support" to Afghanistan after 2014 but added: "This will not be a combat mission."
Despite the size of the coalition, the war remains a United States-dominated effort.
The U.S. has 90,000 of the 130,000 foreign forces in the war. Obama has pledged to shrink that to 68,000 by the end of September but has offered no details on the withdrawal pace after that, other than to say it will be gradual.
The fighting alliance called negotiation the key to ending the insurgency in Afghanistan, but avoided mentioning the Taliban by name. The insurgents walked away from U.S.-led talks in March, and urged the NATO nations to follow the lead of France in pledging to remove combat forces ahead of schedule.
The alliance agreed on a fundraising goal to underwrite the Afghan armed forces after the international fighting forces depart.
The force of about 230,000 would cost about $4.1 billion annually — the bulk of it paid by the United States and countries that have not been part of the fighting force.
U.S. and British officials said during the summit that pledges total about $1 billion a year so far and that fundraising is on track to make up the rest. French President Francois Hollande said the U.S. had requested a little less than $200 million but was non-committal, saying France was "not bound by what Germany or other countries might do."
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Associated Press writer Julie Pace and Jamey Keaten contributed to this report.
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