NATO this week trumpeted its recovery from the worst crisis in its 55-year history over Iraq, but resurgent discord -- notably between the US and France -- did not augur well for a restored sense of harmony.
A lack of clarity over what was agreed on both Iraq and Afghanistan also dampened any sense of accord at the two-day summit in Istanbul, a venue chosen to symbolize the bridging of different cultures and views.
"This is a pivotal moment in international history ... In Istanbul, allies have demonstrated once again their common will to act together to defend our shared security and our common values," said NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
That sort of mood-music oratory resonated repeatedly around the fortress-like conference center overlooking the Bosphorus where the group held its biennial summit.
Indeed, two key accords were celebrated. The alliance, holding its first gathering since its April expansion into ex-Soviet territory, notably agreed to train Iraqi troops.
Its leaders also hammered out a deal to send more NATO peacekeepers to Afghanistan to protect planned September elections, the first since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban.
But signs that not everyone was singing from the same hymn sheet were clear even before the summit started Monday, when the world, and evidently Jacques Chirac, awoke to the news that Iraq was getting its limited sovereignty back two days early.
As US President George W. Bush and Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair shared a conspiratorial smile at the deal, the caught-short French president expressed his pique by declaring initially that he simply "took note" of the handover.
A short time later Chirac, who spearheaded the opposition to last year's US-led Iraq war, welcomed the departure of the US Coalition from Baghdad with a barb.
"I do not think that it is NATO's role to intervene in Iraq," he said, repeating his opposition to NATO troops inside Iraq rather than outside -- a point on which he was backed by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
On Tuesday hopes of NATO speaking with a single voice were higher when Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed its vow to bolster its International Security Assistance Force before September elections.
The accord did appear to mark a breakthrough for the alliance, which has struggled for months to drum up the resources needed to take over some duties from the US-led anti-Taliban operations in the war-scarred country.
But even as the NATO leaders prepared to leave, it emerged that wrangling was not entirely resolved over exactly where the troops and equipment will come from.
Again France led countries opposed to the use of a newly-created rapid reaction force, arguing that the alliance's more traditional arm-twisting method of finding troops was good enough.
Diplomats conceded that the dispute was causing headaches, but insisted that it could be resolved, possibly by using Italian troops.
"I think we can get the forces another way if we have to," said one envoy, who asked not to be identified.
But perhaps the summit's biggest spat was over something not even up for debate by NATO: a comment by Bush backing summit host Turkey's bid to join the European Union -- a prospect eyed with some scepticism in Paris.
"Not only did he go too far, he ventured into territory which is not his concern," Chirac said. "It would be like me telling the United States how to run its affairs with Mexico."
US Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns, speaking as the summit closed, hailed the gathering as proof that NATO had moved away from its Cold War origins and must now play a global security role.
The summit "confirmed the US view that NATO's place has to be well outside of Europe, on the front lines of the war on terrorism," he said.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan denied that the Franco-US spat had clouded the Istanbul gathering.
"I believe it should be considered as being normal for the president of a very influential country in the world to express his opinion," he said of Bush's support for Ankara. "It should not be a cause of discomfort."
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reach the point of confidence that they can start and win a war to destroy the democratic culture on Taiwan, any future decision to do so may likely be directly affected by the CCP’s ability to promote wars on the Korean Peninsula, in Europe, or, as most recently, on the Indian subcontinent. It stands to reason that the Trump Administration’s success early on May 10 to convince India and Pakistan to deescalate their four-day conventional military conflict, assessed to be close to a nuclear weapons exchange, also served to
The recent aerial clash between Pakistan and India offers a glimpse of how China is narrowing the gap in military airpower with the US. It is a warning not just for Washington, but for Taipei, too. Claims from both sides remain contested, but a broader picture is emerging among experts who track China’s air force and fighter jet development: Beijing’s defense systems are growing increasingly credible. Pakistan said its deployment of Chinese-manufactured J-10C fighters downed multiple Indian aircraft, although New Delhi denies this. There are caveats: Even if Islamabad’s claims are accurate, Beijing’s equipment does not offer a direct comparison
After India’s punitive precision strikes targeting what New Delhi called nine terrorist sites inside Pakistan, reactions poured in from governments around the world. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) issued a statement on May 10, opposing terrorism and expressing concern about the growing tensions between India and Pakistan. The statement noticeably expressed support for the Indian government’s right to maintain its national security and act against terrorists. The ministry said that it “works closely with democratic partners worldwide in staunch opposition to international terrorism” and expressed “firm support for all legitimate and necessary actions taken by the government of India
Taiwan aims to elevate its strategic position in supply chains by becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) hub for Nvidia Corp, providing everything from advanced chips and components to servers, in an attempt to edge out its closest rival in the region, South Korea. Taiwan’s importance in the AI ecosystem was clearly reflected in three major announcements Nvidia made during this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei. First, the US company’s number of partners in Taiwan would surge to 122 this year, from 34 last year, according to a slide shown during CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech on Monday last week.