Prime Minister Stephen Harper said, in an interview broadcast Sunday, that he did not believe the war in Afghanistan would ever be completely won.

"We''re not going to win this war just by staying," Harper told CNN television. "Quite frankly, we are not going to ever defeat the insurgency. Afghanistan has probably had -- my reading of Afghanistan history is -- it''s probably had an insurgency forever of some kind."

Canada has 2,700 troops in Afghanistan whose mission is scheduled to end in 2011.

"What has to happen in Afghanistan is we have to have an Afghan government that is capable of managing that insurgency," the prime minister said.