KABUL - As part of capacity building efforts, more than 10,000 personnel with the Afghan National Police (ANP) have completed necessary training and joined the ANP over the past four months, the country's Interior Ministry spokesman said Monday.

"A total of 10,500 police constables and police officers have completed their training across the country within the past four month," spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told a joint press conference with the NATO-led coalition or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman Brigadier General Gunter Katz.

He also added that 300 policemen had concluded their training in Egypt and commissioned to the national police.

The spokesman further said over the next couple of months 800 more police personnel would go to Egypt to attend training programs there while another 500 officers will go to Turkey for the same purpose.

"The quality of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) continues to improve every day. You can see this by how well the transition process is proceeding, and by the increasing number of ISAF's Security Force Advising Teams that are moving from assisting ANSF units to primary advising your brave soldiers and policemen as they move forward independent operations," the ISAF spokesman Brigadier General Gunter Katz said at the same briefing.

Afghan government and the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan (NTM-A) have stepped up efforts to train and equip Afghan police and army as NATO-led ISAF forces have handed over the security responsibilities of areas where more than 50 percent of the country's population live, to Afghan security forces, parts of a process which will run through 2014 when Afghanistan takes over the full leadership of its own security duties from U.S. and NATO forces. (BP)