FACTBOX - Hague conference on Afghanistan

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Senior officials from around the world are gathering in The Hague for a U.N.-backed conference on Afghanistan on Tuesday.

The following gives some facts about the conference:

PARTICIPANTS

Participants include U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, along with the foreign ministers of the Netherlands, Japan and Australia.

Nearly 90 countries are participating, including delegates from Russia, China and Pakistan, although their representatives were not yet known.

Dutch media said Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Asia-Pacific affairs Mahdi Akhoundzadeh would attend. Tehran had no comment.

NATO, the OECD, European Union, Asian Development Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Bank are all sending delegates.

WHO PROPOSED THE MEETING?

The meeting was proposed by Clinton. It will be jointly chaired by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen.

ISSUES

President Barack Obama unveiled a new strategy on Friday which combines extra troops for Afghanistan, funds for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and a renewed focus on targeting al Qaeda militants on the Afghan/Pakistan border.

The United States is expected to seek support for its strategy, although organisers say the one-day conference is not about the implementation of the U.S. plan.

Organisers also say it will focus on regional cooperation rather than seeking extra troops or money for Afghanistan.

It could also look at ways of combating Afghanistan's huge opium trade.

MILITARY PRESENCE

More than 70,000 U.S. and NATO troops are currently in Afghanistan. On top of a deployment of 17,000 extra U.S. troops to tackle violence before elections due in August, Obama committed another 4,000 last week to train the army.

More than 33,000 U.S. troops are currently deployed.

The Obama administration has said it wants a greater emphasis on training Afghan military and police forces.

U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke has proposed bringing the existing disparate training efforts under one single hat, but there has been little European response to that so far.

(Reporting by Reed Stevenson and Mark John)