Prague  - The seven NATO countries that ordered Airbus A400M transport aircraft agreed to seek more details on the delivery timetable before deciding whether to cancel much-delayed contracts, European diplomats said Thursday.

The countries - Germany, France, Britain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain and Turkey - may jointly cancel the combined orders for 180 transport planes on April 1.

Kabul  - One NATO soldier was killed and two injured in a roadside bomb blast in eastern Afghanistan, the military said Sunday.

The soldiers, who were part of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), were attacked during a patrol on Sunday, the alliance said in a statement.

Taliban militants rely heavily on use of roadside bombings as part of their campaign to topple the Western-backed Afghan government seven years after the ouster of their ultra-Islamist regime.

Brussels  - The United States would invite Iran to a regional conference aimed at stabilizing Afghanistan in the coming weeks if the event goes ahead, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday.

"If we move forward with such a meeting, it is expected that Iran would be invited," Clinton said after talks with NATO counterparts at the alliance's Brussels headquarters.

At the meeting, Clinton proposed a regional conference with key players such as NATO, the UN, Russia, India and Pakistan aimed at stabilizing Afghanistan.

Kabul  - Afghan civilians will bear the brunt of a massive US expansion of forces in the country, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned on Monday.

US President Barack Obama has announced the deployment of some 17,000 extra troops for Afghanistan, to top up more than 70,000 international forces already stationed in the war-wracked country.

Afghan civilians "will bear the brunt of the announced escalation and that the consequences for many will be dire in the extreme," Pierre Krahenbuhl, director of operations for the ICRC told reporters.

He called on all sides in Afghanistan do more to protect the local population.

Hamburg  - French President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to stay away from celebrations of 60 years of NATO unless he was given a choice seat at the conference table, the German news weekly Der Spiegel reported Saturday.

It said Sarkozy objected to seating in alphabetical order of the member country's names and insisted that he must sit next to NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer during the meeting in early April in Strasbourg, France and in nearby German towns.

Brussels  - NATO strongly condemned Wednesday's terrorist attacks in Kabul, saying they provide further evidence that the Taliban insurgency does not seek the betterment of the Afghan people.

NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the attacks were "a very clear indication of what the Taliban intends for Afghanistan."

"They have slaughtered a number of civilians, they have attacked government institutions, they have made it very clear that their goal is not the betterment of the Afghan people," Appathurai said.