Defence minister Stephen Smith says there may be some withdrawing of troops from Afghanistan but Australia will maintain a presence until 2014.
Mr Smith, who is in Brussels for a meeting of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) defence ministers, said on Friday Oruzgan province would begin to transition to Afghan government security responsibility over the next 12-18 months.
He said the province was on track to make that transition by 2014, perhaps a little earlier.
'As transition occurs, then there is a chance that we will see a need for fewer Australians engaged in the training and mentoring role,' he told ABC television.
'But we continue to see a need for an Australian presence in Oruzgan until the end of 2014, just as we'll see the ongoing presence of the United Nations and other NATO and ISAF countries there until the end of 2014.'
Australia now has some 1550 troops in Afghanistan, most in Oruzgan province conducting training of Afghan forces and security operations.
The latest speculation comes after US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said US forces would end their combat role and concentrate instead on training and advising Afghan security forces.
Mr Smith said Australia did not describe this as an early pull-out and neither did Panetta.
But he said better than expected progress on transition to Afghan security responsibility did open up the prospect of drawing down.
But he stressed that there would likely still be an Australian presence after 2014 in a different form.
'That might be continuing training, it might be military advisers and it might also be an ongoing contribution so far as special forces are concerned, either training Afghan special forces or actually continuing to do particular operations,' he added.
Mr Smith said he had talked with Afghan Defence Minister General Abdul Rahim Wardak who said there had been good progress but that the job wasn't yet done.
'One of the phrases that I've heard repeatedly today from my European colleagues and from Secretary Panetta is the phrase in together, out together'. That underlines the Lisbon Summit arrangement which is transition by the end of 2014,' Mr Smith added.
