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Brussels (eCanadaNow) - NATO's military operation in Afghanistan and Russia's recent surprise counter-offer to the US on missile defence will top the agenda of a meeting of the alliance's 26 defence ministers in Brussels on Thursday.

The meeting, coming only days after US troops mistakenly killed seven policemen in an air strike in the east of Afghanistan, will focus on ways to stop the rising number of civilian casualties in the country.

Diplomats say ministers will look at ways of increasing cooperation and improving communication between the Afghan army, NATO forces and US troops in the country.

In addition, US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates has called for enhanced training of soldiers in the Afghan National Army.

"Tragically, despite our best efforts, innocent civilians have been killed - by Taliban suicide bombs and roadside bombs, but I should add, also by international forces," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer admitted recently.

NATO officials caution, however, against comparing the deliberate targeting of civilians by insurgents and the alliance's efforts to avoid civilian casualties.

"When civilian casualties do occur, they are a tragic consequence and a tragic mistake and have always to be contrasted with the tactics of the Taliban...who are deliberately using civilian casualties as a way of seeking to achieve their ends," said John Colston, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Planning.

NATO is worried that the recent wave of civilian deaths and damage to civilian property in Afghanistan risks eroding European public support for the mission. It also damages NATO's drive to win the hearts and minds of Afghan people.

Ministers will point to the need for stronger cooperation with the Afghan army.

"We can, and will, do better," said Scheffer who has acknowledged that allies are not doing enough in training and equipping Afghan forces.

The NATO chief has vowed quick action to to establish the cause of civilian deaths and to prevent similar occurrences.

Scheffer will also urge ministers to step up development and humanitarian aid as part of a "comprehensive" approach to stabilizing Afghanistan.

"In Afghanistan and elsewhere, peace will not survive for long without jobs, electricity, roads, schools, or teachers," warned Scheffer.

Ministers are expected to agree that the alliance should explore options for a NATO add-on to a US missile shield in order to ensure protection for all of Europe from attacks from so-called "rogue states" like Iran and North Korea.

The current controversial US proposal to station elements of the defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic does not cover parts of south-east Europe.

NATO officials say that the US missile defence plan would be complimentary to any future NATO system and also cost a "small fraction" of the expenditure involved in developing a full and independent missile system for NATO.

Meanwhile, Gates and other NATO defence ministers will seek explanations from their Russian counterpart Anatoly Serdyukov on last week's surprise offer from President Vladimir Putin to share access to a Russian-controlled radar in Gabala in Azerbaijan for missile defence.

NATO officials say the Russian proposal needs to be studied further but is a welcome sign that Putin may be toning down his recent anti-Western rhetoric.

The Russian leader is fiercely opposed to US plans to station elements of its missile defence system in Eastern Europe and used a meeting of the Group of Eight (G8) leaders in Germany last week to offer access to the Gabala radar station as an alternative to the US blueprint.

NATO officials say the Russian proposal requires further study but will probably not replace the US plan.

"The radar in Azerbaijan is likely to be too close to supposed sources of missile threats to be as efficient as a radar deployed farther from them," Colston said ahead of the talks on Thursday.

But he welcomed that Putin seemed "to be moving on from the rhetoric of confrontation to the rhetoric of co-operation."

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