NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen paid tribute to the US general who resigned Wednesday from leading the alliance's war effort in Afghanistan, saying General Stanley McChrystal helped put NATO on the "right" track.
As commander of all US and NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops, McChrystal was the leading instigator of a new military strategy launched last year to stymie the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan, DPA reported.
"I thank General McChrystal for his service to NATO, and for the enormous effort he has put into leading the ISAF mission. While he will no longer be the commander, the approach he helped put in place is the right one," Rasmussen said in a statement.
He welcomed McChrystal's replacement, General David Petraeus, the head of Central Command and former commander of US forces in Iraq, and stressed that NATO's "operations in Afghanistan are continuing today, and they will not miss a beat."
"The Afghan people should have no doubt that we will continue to carry out our mission in partnership with them. We will continue working to protect the Afghan population and to build the Afghan security forces, and we will stay for as long as it takes to do our job," Rasmussen said.
President Barack Obama accepted McChrystal's resignation after meeting him in the White House. The general was summoned after a Rolling Stone article had portrayed him as dismissive of senior US officials for their concerns about the ongoing Afghan war.