The Netherlands will end its troop contribution to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali next year and will instead deploy troops to Afghanistan, the Dutch defense ministrysaid in a statement on Friday. 

“The Netherlands will halt its current [military] contribution to the UN mission by 1 May 2019,” the statement read. 

According to the statement, the Netherlands will extend and intensify its contribution to NATO’s Resolute Support mission and will send in an additional 60 soldiers. 

These soldiers will join the 100 already in Afghanistan and their deployment will run through to 2021.

According to the Defense Post, there are currently 250 Dutch soldiers at Camp Castor near the city of Gao in eastern Mali.

Xinhua reported that the announcement came as no surprise, as two days ago, a Netherlands court published a report about the Dutch involvement in the UN's MINUSMA mission in Mali. According to the report, the mission has too many negative repercussions for the rest of the Dutch military, in terms of the demand for material and manpower.

"Years of cutbacks, combined with increasing international pressure and responsibilities, have taken their toll on the armed forces," the Dutch government stated in a press statement. 

"It goes without saying that the armed forces can only be deployed if doing so is a responsible course of action. The recently published report reaffirmed the importance of this. The conclusions were explicit factors in the decisions concerning the various missions."

The Dutch government is now setting new priorities, putting more focus on NATO's Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, partly at the request of NATO and Afghanistan.