Kabul - NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Wednesday that restrictions on troop deployment by some European nations hinder the alliance in Afghanistan.

During a three-day visit to the country, Sheffer admitted that he had been unable to convince some NATO countries to relax restrictions on troop movements.

"The nations should lift their caveats, as we call them, the limitation on the use of their forces, because they hinder the mission," Scheffer said at NATO International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul.

Germany, Spain, and Italy are among the European nations that have restricted their forces to relatively peaceful provinces in the western and northern parts of the country.

Those nations have resisted pressure from other NATO countries, mainly the United States, to deploy their troops against Taliban forces in the southern and eastern regions.

Scheffer said that before ending his five-year-term as the secretary general, he would ask "for the lifting of the caveats, lifting the limitations and I will ask for more equal burden sharing."

"I have done that and I have not been entirely successful here. Caveats have been lifted, but not sufficiently and not enough," he said.

NATO has around 60,000 troops in Afghanistan from 42 nations. The US is sending 17,000 additional soldiers by the middle of this year. (dpa)