McCallum arrived Monday and will meet with Afghan leaders and military officials during his visit, including President Hamid Karzai and Defence Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim, the foreign ministry press officer said.

He was also due to meet with the commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and visit an advance party of Canadian peacekeeping troops already in Kabul.

Some 1,800 Canadian troops are due to replace German peacekeepers in ISAF when the six-month joint German-Dutch command ends in August and NATO takes over.

The 4,600-strong ISAF is responsible for security in the Afghan capital under a United Nations mandate. A separate US-led coalition force is hunting Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in the south and east of Afghanistan.

McCallum was due to leave Kabul Tuesday evening.

Kabul earlier this month welcomed Canada's decision to reopen its embassy next January after a 24-year closure.

Ottawa closed its Kabul embassy in 1979 after an invasion of Soviet troops and did not establish diplomatic relations with any of the subsequent regimes until the Taliban was toppled by US-led forces in 2001.

It only re-established diplomatic relations with Karzai's post-Taliban Afghanistan in January 2002.

The Canadian embassy in neighbouring Pakistan currently handles relations between Kabul and Ottawa.

Kabul opened an embassy in Ottawa for the first time last year and also has a consular office in Toronto.

WAR.WIRE