LONDON — President Bush received a boost Monday in what has been widely billed as his farewell tour of Europe: pledges for new financial sanctions against Iran and a commitment for a net increase of 230 British troops in Afghanistan.
The new deployment takes the number of British troops in the Central Asian nation to its highest levels, with 8,030 forces now committed in Kabul, Kandahar and Helmand provinces.
The decision was not officially linked to the arrival of Bush, who met Monday with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and had breakfast with his predecessor, Tony Blair, a day after visiting Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle.
But the announcement follows long-standing U.S. complaints that some European allies are not doing their share in the war against the Taliban.
"Eighteen months ago, the Taliban had boasted that they and their paid foreign fighters would drive our forces out of southern Helmand. Now most would agree that security is on the way to being transformed," Brown said at a news conference with Bush.
"Our aim is to generate progress, where the fourth-poorest country in the world, laid low by decades of conflict, can as a democracy enjoy peaceful economic and social development, with our forces over time moving from a direct combat role to train and support Afghanistan's own army and police," he said.
The two leaders focused most of their attention on Iran, which is likely to reject a new package of incentives presented by Western officials over the weekend. The proposal was an effort to halt the Islamic Republic's uranium enrichment program, which Tehran says is a civilian energy program but some Western leaders allege could enable Iran to build a nuclear bomb.
Brown announced that European Union leaders were prepared to adopt further financial sanctions against Iran, and said Britain would step in immediately with a freeze on assets of the Islamic Republic's largest bank, Bank Melli.
He said officials also would begin considering "a new spate of sanctions" targeting Iran's oil and gas sector, presumably with an eye toward punishing foreign firms that invest in the Islamic Republic's most important moneymaking industry.
The U.S. adopted unilateral sanctions against Bank Melli and two other Iranian banks in October and has been urging other countries to follow suit. Several Western banks have stopped doing business with Iran to protect their U.S. business connections.
