Brussels - The European Union agreed Monday to double the size of its police training mission in Afghanistan, while Italy signalled it could redeploy its troops to more dangerous zones as part of its involvement in NATO's peace-keeping mission there.

"The EU General Affairs and External Relations Council has decided the EU should double the number of participants in the EUPOL mission in Afghanistan," said a statement from the Slovenian presidency of the bloc.

"This measure will strengthen efforts towards police reform," it added.

Launched in June 2007 and expected to last for at least three years, the EUPOL mission consists of about 200 experts tasked with training Afghan policemen and officials at the interior ministry.

Their numbers are now expected to rise to about 400 over the next 12 months, diplomats said.

"We want the Afghan government to be able to take care of security themselves," said German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung, whose country was strongly behind the initiative.

Separately, new Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said his government was ready to drop its caveats and deploy its troops to more dangerous battle zones, as requested by NATO.

"We are talking about greater geographical flexibility," Frattini said. "We want to align Italy to its other great NATO partners."

Italy currently has about 2,360 soldiers in Afghanistan. But they are mainly deployed in Kabul and in the less restive west of the country.

The previous centre-left government of Romano Prodi refused to give in to US requests for the troops to be sent to southern hotspots, where NATO is fighting Taliban insurgents.

Germany has maintained a similar position, refusing to let its nearly 3,500 troops fight in the south.

This stance has angered the United States, Britain, Canada and the Netherlands, which have suffered significant casualties around the Kandahar region.

Frattini did not rule out sending troops to the south, saying redeployment would depend on the requests made by NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Defence ministers meeting in Brussels also discussed the EU's current peacekeeping missions in Chad, Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere and reviewed a French-British initiative aimed at making more European helicopters deployable in far-away places. (dpa)