Nato leaders hoping for a rush of troop offers for the campaign in Afghanistan appeared to be doomed to disappointment today as discussions continued at the alliance summit in the Romanian capital.

Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, has set the marker by declaring that American military commanders in Afghanistan wanted another three brigades, a total of about 10,000 troops. But there are no signs today of any move to meet such a demand.

President Sarkozy confirmed that he intended to send a battalion of French troops to eastern Afghanistan, which will enable the Americans to switch some of their units in that part of the country to support the Canadians in Kandahar province in the south.

A French battalion would amount to between 700 and 800 troops. There was also a suggestion that France might send 200 special forces to Afghanistan. President Sarkozy had originally indicated he would be sending a total of about 1,000 troops as reinforcements.

Other countries prepared to offer some extra troops included Romania, Croatia and Portugal, although not in large quantities. The total number of foreign troops now in Afghanistan is 47,000, according to the Americans.

Britain's position is that it already has a sufficient military presence and role in Helmand province in the south and is not intending to offer any more troops at this summit, although defence planners in London are looking at the option of boosting the present 7,800-strong force to more than 8,000 by the autumn. Ministry of Defence officials said no decision had been made on any increase in the British force.

Gordon Brown who has been urging other Nato allies to "come up to the plate" with troop offers, has reaffirmed Britain's plan to form a helicopter trust fund, with an injection of £3 million, to help countries involved in the Afghanistan mission to upgrade their helicopter fleets to a warfighting capability.

The military campaign in Afghanistan has been short of helicopters since the renewed operation began in 2006, and Mr Brown is hoping that other nations will now be prepared to send both combat and transport helicopters once they have used the special fund to fit added protection to the airframes.

President Karzai who is attending the Nato summit as a special guest, has announced that the Afghan National Army (ANA) is to take over security responsibility for Kabul and central Afghanistan, the first evidence that the taining the ANA has received at the hands of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) has paid off.

In a speech in Bucharest yesterday (WED), President Bush said that Nato was helping the Afghans to take on security for themselves and that the size of the Afghan forces had risen from 33,000 last year to 55,000 today.

Nato released a document, called Progress in Afghanistan, to underline the improvements that had been made with the help of the international community, including the construction of more than 4,000 kilometres of roads. In 2001, Afghanistan had only 50 kilometres of roads.

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