The secretary general of NATO echoed Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta on Thursday, February 2 and said that the United States and its allies would step back from a combat role in Afghanistan in mid-2013, leaving Afghan forces in the lead to defend their own country.

“From that time, the role of our troops will gradually change from combat to support,” the secretary general, Anders Fogh-Rasmussen, told reporters at a NATO meeting. But he added that it was crucial that “this change of role takes into account the actual security situation on the ground.”

All American and NATO troops are to be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014 under an existing agreement, although there is the expectation that a small international force will be left behind, The New York Times reported.

On Wednesday, Mr. Panetta told reporters on his plane on the way to Brussels that the United States would move out of combat role by mid to late 2013, which was the first time that the United States had put a date on stepping back from its central role in the war.

Panetta played down last week’s announcement by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France that his country would break with its NATO allies and accelerate the withdrawal of its forces in Afghanistan by pulling back its troops a year early, by the end of 2013. Mr. Sarkozy made the announcement after an attack by a rogue Afghan soldier who killed four unarmed French soldiers on a training mission.