Thorbjørn Jagland, then President of the Storting, requested the government should send more soldiers to Afghanistan, if NATO requested it. The Socialist Left supported the war, but was against sending more soldiers to the region, and denied access for the Norwegian Special Forces. Their main reason was that Norway, along with the Netherlands, "clearly had the most soldiers located in Afghanistan [...]" in relation to population in the respective countries, and Afghanistan was "the largest military commitment Norway currently has abroad".