Britain will host talks on Afghanistan on Jan. 28, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said, just days before US President Barack Obama spells out his expansion of the war effort next week.

The international conference in London, to be followed by a meeting in Kabul, will address progressively handing security to Afghan control, Brown and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at a Commonwealth summit in Trinidad and Tobago.

That would, in theory, allow NATO countries to draw down their forces gradually as public support wanes on both sides of the Atlantic for the costly war that began in late 2001.

The London and Kabul talks will ‘outline the framework for an increased lead role for the Afghans in the shaping of their destiny,‘ Ban said.

Brown said he saw the need ‘to transfer at least five Afghan provinces to lead Afghan control by the end of 2010.‘

Despite talk of a transition, the immediate focus for the United States, Britain and their allies is how best to fight a tenacious insurgency by Taliban and al Qaeda militants, including calls for tens of thousands more soldiers.

Obama will address US citizens in a prime-time televised speech on Tuesday to explain why US soldiers need to be in Afghanistan and the way toward an ‘endgame‘ in the conflict.

He is expected to say he is sending about 30,000 more US troops as part of a strategy to accelerate training of Afghan forces and press President Hamid Karzai to improve governance after his re-election in a fraud-tainted vote in August.