“This will make it possible to protect parts of NATO territory, and that concept will be further developed in the coming years so that we will gradually be able to protect all the populations in European NATO countries,” Fogh Rasmussen said.

“As far as NATO is concerned, we have tested the systems and they work.”

Reports by the Defense Science Board, an advisory group to the U.S. Defense Department, and the U.S. Congress’ Government Accountability Office, indicated the system is plagued by technological problems, delays and cost overruns. The reports say missile interceptors are running into production glitches, radars are underpowered and sensors cannot distinguish between warheasds and other objects.

Fogh Rasmussen declined to discuss specifics, saying he had not seen the reports.

“I think that’s a U.S. question,” he said.

Missile defense in Europe has been a nettlesome issue since the middle of last decade, when President George W. Bush announced plans to base long-range interceptors in central Europe as a defense against missiles from Iran. That infuriated Russia, which believed the program was intended to counter Moscow’s intercontinental ballistic missiles and undermine its nuclear deterrent.

Soon after Obama took office in 2009, he revamped the program with a plan calling for slower interceptors that would be upgraded gradually over four phases, culminating with the newest versions in 2020.

The early phases call for using Aegis radars on ships and a more powerful radar based in Turkey. Later phases call for moving Aegis radars to Romania and Poland.

NATO says that the future ballistic missile defense system passed a significant technical test on 4-5 April during a series of simulated engagements. In another April test, a similar theater missile defense system tested jointly with Russia also performed well, it says.

Critics have dismissed the missile shield as an expensive “make-work project” designed to provide the 63-year-old alliance with a raison d’etre after it winds down its presence in Afghanistan.

Fogh Rasmussen said leaders will discuss ending the alliance’s combat operations in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, while remaining committed to the training mission after that. He said he was confident that the international community — not just the U.S., NATO and other partner nations engaged in the war — will commit itself to help finance Afghan security forces after 2014.

“The reason is that from a political point it’s much better to give the defense of Afghanistan a strong Afghan face by handing over the full responsibility to the Afghan security forces, and from the economic point of view it’s less expensive to finance Afghan security forces than to deploy foreign troops,” he said.

Fogh Rasmussen also said he felt confident that whoever wins Sunday’s French presidential election, the country will stay committed to the operation in Afghanistan based on the principle “in-together, out-together.”

Polls predict that incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy will lose the May 6 runoff to Socialist Francois Hollande, who has vowed to speed up the timetable for a pullout of France’s 3,600 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year.

“NATO as an organization deals with the elected president whoever it may be,” Fogh Rasmussen said. “We know France as a staunch and reliable ally (in Afghanistan).”

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Raf Casert in Brussels contributed to this report.

He did not elaborate on the challenges, but said that this month alone nearly 100 Afghan soldiers and policemen have been killed in action. Thirty NATO service members also have died so far in April, bringing the total for this year to 122.

The general’s caution is a more sobering take than NATO’s upbeat official pronouncements on the 10-year war against the Taliban.

Since the beginning of the year, insurgents have launched a series of coordinated strikes in Kabul and several eastern cities, underscoring their ability to penetrate heavily guarded areas of the capital.

Relations between NATO and the Afghan government also have been strained by an Internet video of U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of presumed Taliban fighters, by Quran burning at a U.S. base that sparked days of deadly protests and by the alleged killing spree of Afghan civilians by a U.S. soldier.

Coalition forces, whose numbers reached a peak of over 140,000 troops last year, have already started a draw down. The vast majority are scheduled to leave by the end of 2014, when the Afghan troops are expected to take over all security responsibilities.

The U.S., which had about 100,000 service members in Afghanistan, expects to have a third of its troops out of the country by September.

“What is important now is that we must stay the course in accordance with (the alliance’s) strategy,” Bartels said.

Meanwhile, the Afghan army and police are being expanded rapidly, and are expected to grow to 352,000 by the middle of this year.

Bartels is chairing the meeting of the chiefs of staff of all 28 allied nations. U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. John Allen, top commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, will brief participants.

The two-day gathering of defense chiefs, which also will review progress on the alliance’s missile defense program, paves the way for a summit of NATO leaders in Chicago on May 20-21.

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Heidi Vogt in Kabul contributed to this report.

EU experts will work out later precisely which goods will be included in the new embargo. One of the diplomats said so-called “dual-use” goods can include anything from vehicles to fertilizers and other chemicals.

The only precedent in international relations for the luxury ban is one imposed by the EU in 2007 on North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Officials said this could serve as a model for the same measure against Syria.

That ban included foods such as caviar and truffles, high-quality wines and spirits, fashion accessories including bags and shoes, perfumes, crystal and silverware, and purebred horses.

The ban on luxury items appears to take direct aim at some of Assad’s most loyal supporters: the business community and prosperous merchant classes that are key to propping up the regime. An influential bloc, the business leaders have long traded political freedoms for economic privileges in Syria.

So far, the wealthy classes have stuck to the sidelines, but if the economic squeeze reaches them, it could be a game changer, analysts say.

Assad, who inherited power in 2000, spent years shifting the country away from the socialism espoused by his father. In the process, he helped boost a new and vibrant merchant class that transformed Syria’s economic landscape even as the regime’s political trappings remained unchanged.

The U.N. estimates that more than 9,000 people have been killed since an uprising against the government of President Bashar Assad began in Syria a year ago.

The world body has sent an advance eight-person observer team to Syria to support a plan by international envoy Kofi Annan to end the country’s 13-month crisis. The U.N. has authorized a mission of 300 observers.

“We need to continue to intensify pressure on the Assad regime,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said. “They are not in complete compliance with the cease-fire provisions of the Annan plan.”

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Associated Press correspondent Elizabeth A. Kennedy in Beirut contributed to this report.

“We’re at a pivotal point for the alliance as we build on the gains that have been made in Afghanistan and try to chart the course for the future in that area,” U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Monday in Washington.

Other items for discussion include plans for a missile defense system in Europe, and for improving the pooling and sharing of equipment among the European members as military budgets across the continent are being pared down.

“This involves a fundamental rethink of how we design, deploy and use our capabilities in the future,” said a senior NATO official who could not be named in line with standing rules. “In that sense, we see Chicago as a stepping stone for the future.

The United States hopes to finalize an agreement with Afghanistan outlining the alliance’s future role in the country before the summit occurs. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that 2013 should be a milestone for NATO, when it transitions from a combat role to a supportive role, only participating in combat when absolutely necessary to back up its Afghan allies.

“2011 was, I think, a clear turning point,” Panetta told reporters. “We did seriously weaken the Taliban.”

The Afghan army and police are being expanded rapidly, and are expected to grow to 352,000 by the middle of this year. They face about 25,000 Taliban and other insurgents.

Coalition forces, whose numbers reached a peak of over 140,000 troops last year, have already started a draw down. The U.S., which had about 100,000 service members in Afghanistan, has begun a withdrawal which will eliminate about a third of them by September.

Other major contributors to the coalition — including Canada, the Netherlands and France — have already pulled their forces out of combat or accelerated their withdrawals.

And in a surprise announcement Tuesday, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said her government expects to pull most of its troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2013 — nearly a year earlier than the original target.

Nearly 3,000 NATO troops have perished in the conflict, about two-thirds of them Americans.

Opinion polls in NATO nations show the popularity of the commitment has plummeted amid the rising the death toll. In the U.S., six out of 10 of those surveyed saw the war as not worth its costs, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released last month. Opposition to the war is bipartisan, the poll showed.

The emphasis on the buildup of Afghan forces and the withdrawal of foreign troops comes despite the alliance’s failure to finally defeat the insurgency after 10 years of war.

On Sunday, a small band of guerrillas mounted a brazen strike on embassies, government buildings and NATO bases in Kabul’s heavily guarded central district. The violence showed the Taliban and their allies are far from beaten and underscored the security challenge facing the fledgling government forces as U.S. and NATO troops pull out.

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Slobodan Lekic can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/slekich

The Western military alliance says its planned missile defense program is aimed at potential threats from nations that have, or are acquiring, missile technology. But analysts believe the shield is meant to protect Europe from Iran’s medium-range missiles.

Still, Russia has objected to the program, fearing it will eventually grow powerful enough to intercept Russian missiles, thus undermining its nuclear deterrent.

It was not immediately clear whether the meeting will occur before the NATO summit in Chicago in May. The Russian president would normally attend such a meeting of NATO heads of state, but the unresolved dispute over missile defense has thrown that into doubt.

Despite those differences, the two sides have cooperated closely in Afghanistan, where Russia provides one of the main transit routes for supplies to coalition forces in the landlocked nation and trains Afghan counter-narcotics officials. The importance of the overland link from Europe has grown significantly since Pakistan partially blocked NATO supplies from crossing its territory following an alliance airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani border troops in November.

Their navies also have worked together in suppressing piracy off the Somali coastline, and there has been growing cooperation in other areas such preventing terrorist attacks.

The NATO statement said Fogh Rasmussen telephoned Putin on Thursday morning to congratulate him on his return to office and said that he looks forward “to continued engagement and constructive dialogue.”

Fogh Rasmussen “emphasized NATO’s commitment, and his own personal commitment, to working with the president-elect to establish a true strategic partnership between NATO and Russia, as agreed at the Lisbon summit in 2010,” it said.

The NATO chief expressed hope that it would be possible to move forward on cooperation on missile defense, and that such cooperation would benefit both sides.

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Slobodan Lekic can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/slekich