(9 May 2012) 1. Wide pan of NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen walking to talk to media after meeting with US President Barack Obama
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO Secretary-General:
"The president and I have agreed to hold a series of partnership events in Chicago: a meeting with some of our most active partners, a meeting with aspirant countries and a large ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) meeting on Afghanistan. And all this will make the NATO summit in Chicago the largest NATO summit ever."
3. Wide of Rasmussen talking to media
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO Secretary-General:
"We will stay committed and after 2014, NATO will be in the lead of a training mission, and in Chicago we will take decisions as to how we will shape that mission in details."
5. Rasmussen walking away
STORYLINE:
NATO's secretary-general said on Wednesday that the organisation's Chicago summit would be the largest ever.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen was speaking after meeting US President Barack Obama to discuss final preparations ahead of the summit later this month.
He said they had agreed "to hold a series of partnership events in Chicago: a meeting with some of our most active partners, a meeting with aspirant countries and a large ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) meeting on Afghanistan."
Obama will host the summit in Chicago on May 20 and 21.
Rasmussen also spoke briefly about NATO's role after the combat mission ends in Afghanistan at the end of 2014.
"We will stay committed and after 2014, NATO will be in the lead of a training mission," Rasmussen said.
He said NATO members would take decisions at the Chicago summit "as to how we will shape that mission in detail."
The summit in Chicago will be dominated by planning for a shift away from front-line combat for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
France's new president-elect, Socialist Francois Holland, has vowed to pull French troops out by the end of this year.
That's two years earlier than the rest of the alliance has pledged.
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