Afghanistan will begin to "stand on its own feet" over the course of 2010, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Friday, striking a note of optimism for the country where the alliance has been fighting a Taliban-led insurgency since 2002.

According to Rasmussen, 2010 "will be challenging ... but it is also the year in which we should see Afghanistan's future take shape, when it starts to stand on its own feet and provide for its own security and where terrorists will find no safe haven from which to threaten us all."

NATO allies are set to add nearly 40,000 soldiers to its United Nations mandated 85,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) over the course of the current year. But, as part of an exit strategy, they also said they would start troop drawdown in July 2011, DPA reported.

The NATO secretary general spoke as he opened a session of the NATO defence ministers' meeting in Istanbul dedicated to Afghanistan, where around 15 non-NATO nations that take part in ISAF were also present.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul, the Afghan ministers of defence and interior as well as representatives from the European Union and United Nations were present.