Turkey has blocked Nato from sharing intelligence with the EU because Cyprus and Malta, which are in the EU but not Nato, do not belong to the alliance’s Partnership for Peace Programme, so they have no security clearance.

“Turkey will discuss intelligence issues – and this includes Afghanistan – with the EU only if Cyprus and Malta are excluded. But the EU wants to negotiate as a bloc,” a Nato diplomat has been reported as saying.

But because of this squabble in Brussels between the EU and Turkey, a Nato member, in a complication that could cost many lives, neither EU police officers nor the Afghan police will be automatically given intelligence or backup support from Nato if they come under attack from the Taliban or other fighters.

Such procedural wrangling in Brussels did not matter when Germany was training the Afghan police. The 49 German trainers lived and worked in Kabul in relative safety. But the EU’s new training programme, which involves 196 European police officers, is more ambitious and more dangerous.

Ever since the United States invaded Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban in 2001, attempts to train the police force have foundered.

Until 2006, Germany spent just EUR70 million in training 16,000 police officers in courses lasting up to three years. The United States has spent over $1.3 billion training 40,000 police officers in courses lasting three weeks.