BERLIN - German troops could be deployed to the Afghan town of Charikar in an extension of their current peacekeeping duties in the troubled country, German Defense Minister Peter Struck said in an interview Friday.

He told the Nuernburger Nachrichten daily there was a "good chance" of sending a reconstruction team, including German soldiers, to Charikar, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Kabul.

It was certainly more feasible than deploying a team to the western province of Herat, he said, where the local warlord was resistant to the idea. "The priority is a guarantee of safety for our soldiers. The situation is not yet stable."

The Die Welt daily had reported Thursday that Germany was mulling sending 200 troops to Charikar.

It would be as part of a so-called provincial reconstruction team (PRT), a concept already applied in several other regions of Afghanistan and supported by U.S. forces.

PRTs are a U.S.-led civil-military project intended to help with rebuilding, boost security and extend the influence of President Hamid Karzai's fragile government beyond Kabul.

Germany is due Monday to hand over its shared command of the multinational security assistance force (ISAF) in Afghanistan to NATO.

ISAF, a 4,600-strong body drawn from 29 nations, has a limited mandate that does not stretch beyond the Afghan capital.

Afghanistan's government has struggled to impose authority outside Kabul since the U.S.-led war to topple the Taliban regime ended in late 2001.

Meanwhile, Struck said he was also in favor of holding a new international donor conference on Afghanistan's reconstruction. A first conference was held near Bonn in December 2001. Struck said the delay in getting financial aid for reconstruction "would be a reason for the international community to meet again on the subject of Afghanistan."