04 February: BBC News
Security in Afghanistan remains serious but is no longer deteriorating, the Nato commander in the country has said.
At a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Turkey, General Stanley McChrystal told media the situation in Afghanistan had improved since last summer.
While US President Barack Obama was considering a troop surge last year, Gen McChrystal warned in a speech in the UK Afghanistan was deteriorating.
His more upbeat assessment comes as Nato prepares a big Helmand offensive.
Gen McChrystal told reporters on the sidelines of Thursday's meeting in Istanbul: "I still will tell you that I believe the situation in Afghanistan is serious.
"I do not say now that I think it's deteriorating. I think and I said that last summer, and I believed that that was correct. I feel differently now."
But he cautioned: "I'm not prepared to say that we've turned the corner, so I am saying that the situation is serious but I think we have made significant progress and set the conditions in 2009 and we'll make new progress in 2010."
His remarks comes as coalition and Afghan troops prepare for an offensive to capture the central Helmand town of Marjah from Taliban militants.
Unlike past operations, plans for this one have been widely publicised - although no start date has been released - in the hope that civilians will stay out of the way.
It will be the first major military action since President Obama announced his surge of 30,000 extra US troops for Afghanistan in December.
Gen McChrystal warned there was only limited time to turn around the "deteriorating" situation in Afghanistan, during a speech last October to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
He has warned that the next 18 months could prove crucial to turning around more than eight years of international efforts to stabilise Afghanistan.
