Updated
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his wife Therese Rein have made a surprise visit to Australian troops in Afghanistan.
Mr Rudd visited the Australian base in Tarin Kot to thank troops for their service.
It was Mr Rudd's fifth visit to the base.
His first came a just a week after he was elected prime minister in 2007.
Mr Rudd told the troops that it had been a hard, protracted war and that it is time for them to come home.
"Your mums and dads, your brothers and sisters, your wives and husbands and partners, and your kids are all enormously proud of you," he said.
"It's time we brought you home.
"When the flag of Australia is brought down for the last time a few months from now, you will have been?a part of history."
Ms Rein said she was proud to have shaken hands with many of the soldiers.
By the end of the year, 1,000 of the remaining 1,300 Australian troops will have returned to Australia.
Some 300 will remain as advisers and trainers based in Kabul and Kandahar.
The Tarin Kot base will be gifted to the Afghan National Army.
Forty Australian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2002.
Topics: defence-forces, defence-and-national-security, government-and-politics, federal-government, afghanistan, australia
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