Budapest - NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Thursday said the global financial crisis should not stand in the way of desired increases in military spending by the alliance's member states.

"The global financial crisis will certainly add pressure to national budgets, but we must defend our joint values and prepare for facing challenges," de Hoop Scheffer told the Hungarian daily Nepszabadsag.

"We need to do more, not only through increased military spending, but also by developing the efficiency of our forces," he said.

De Hoop Scheffer's appeal came as NATO defence ministers were holding two days of talks in Budapest.

It echoed similar calls made this week by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

The meeting in Hungary's capital was to focus on NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and on the need to boost the alliance's overall military capabilities.

ISAF now has a force of 50,700 soldiers, up from about 45,000 six months ago.

But the increase has done little to dent the Taliban insurgency. According to iCasualties. org, 237 allied soldiers have already died in Afghanistan in the first 10 months of this year, the highest such figure since the 2001 invasion by Western forces.

Lack of progress has prompted at least one senior commander to concede that NATO may never win in Afghanistan.

The trans-Atlantic alliance's frosty relations with Moscow were also due to come up for discussion in Budapest on Friday, when NATO ministers meet their Georgian counterparts.

This is the first such meeting at ministerial level since NATO promised to help Georgia's military recover from its August conflict with Russia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"We do not want a cold war (with Russia)," the NATO chief told Nepszabadsag on Thursday. "We have to cooperate, but the August events did not make that easier." (dpa)