Nato leaders meeting in Bucharest are set to endorse a planned US missile shield for Europe today, according to a senior US official.
The final summit statement would "recognise the substantive contribution to the protection of the allies" from the missile defence system to be deployed in the Czech Republic and Poland, the official said.
He said President George W. Bush confirmed to the summit that the United States will be able to move some of its troops to Afghanistan's south once France sends a battalion of troops to the east of Afghanistan, meeting Canada's conditions to keep troops in Afghanistan, the official said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said earlier France would send a battalion of troops to the east of Afghanistan as part of efforts to bolster the 47,000-strong peacekeeping force.
Mr Sarkozy also said today he will decide by the end of this year on whether France will return to the alliance's military command it quit in 1966.
"The European Union is going to enter a new phase of its existence with the Lisbon Treaty . . . I reaffirm here France's determination to pursue the process of renovating its relations with Nato," Mr Sarkozy told the meeting in Bucharest.
Mr Sarkozy thanked US President George W. Bush for what he called his "vigorous encouragement" to building up European defence capacities and renovating the Atlantic Alliance.
General Charles de Gaulle withdrew French forces from Nato's command in 1966 at the height of the Cold War and expelled the alliance's headquarters from Paris and Fontainebleau in protest at what he saw as US hegemony in Europe.
However, France has continued to work closely with Nato's military hierarchy and has taken part in almost all of the alliance's missions.