NATO defense ministers were to meet in Germany yesterday to discuss the future of the transatlantic military alliance, notably boosting its presence in Afghanistan and defining the role it could play in Iraq.
Diplomatic sources have said the focus of the informal meeting, held around a working lunch, will be to ensure a successful mission in Afghanistan, probably by deploying more troops to regions outside the capital.
"We cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan," NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Thursday after meeting German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.
Iraq's security, and NATO's part in it, will also be broached at the meeting, which comes ahead of a weekend security conference here, as well as the damage caused to transatlantic ties by the US-led war there.
A year after the war began, the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found and inquiries have been launched into intelligence findings in the US and Britain could foster more conflict.
With the US military badly stretched and elections approaching, the talks may provide US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with an opportunity to mend fences, as Washington needs help as it prepares to return sovereignty to the Iraqis.
Rumsfeld expressed hope here Thursday that NATO will assume a larger role in Iraq but said the alliance's priority now should be its expanded peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.
"I think NATO's ... first task is to do well the Afghan task," Rumsfeld told reporters on the flight from Washington. "The next step might be for them to take on a somewhat larger role in Afghanistan."
"With respect to Iraq, they have stepped forward and been working with the Polish and Spanish multinational division, and we would hope they would they would continue to take a still larger role," he said.
Rumsfeld antagonized some western European allies last year by referring to them as "Old Europe" and arguing that NATO's center of gravity was shifting to the new members from former Soviet bloc countries.
"I would say the relationships right now are very normal," he said.
Afghanistan was NATO's first mission outside Europe. It took command last August of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which was set up in December 2001 after the defeat of the hardline Taliban regime.
The Alliance wants to extend ISAF's operations beyond the capital, Kabul, and press reports suggest it could double the number of troops present and create up to 18 civilian reconstruction teams, up from around 10 currently planned.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
LEFT AND RIGHT: Battling anti-incumbent, anticommunist sentiment, Jeanette Jara had a precarious lead over far-right Jose Antonio Kast as they look to the Dec. 14 run Leftist candidate Jeannette Jara and far-right leader Jose Antonio Kast are to go head-to-head in Chile’s presidential runoff after topping Sunday’s first round of voting in an election dominated by fears of violent crime. With 99 percent of the results counted, Jara, a 51-year-old communist running on behalf of an eight-party coalition, won 26.85 percent, compared with 23.93 percent for Kast, the Servel electoral service said. The election was dominated by deep concern over a surge in murders, kidnappings and extortion widely blamed on foreign crime gangs. Kast, 59, has vowed to build walls, fences and trenches along Chile’s border with Bolivia to
DEATH SENTENCE: The ousted leader said she was willing to attend a fresh trial outside Bangladesh where the ruling would not be a ‘foregone conclusion’ Bangladesh’s fugitive former prime minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday called the guilty verdict and death sentence in her crimes against humanity trial “biased and politically motivated.” Hasina, 78, defied court orders that she return from India to attend her trial about whether she ordered a deadly crackdown against the student-led uprising that ousted her. She was found guilty and sentenced to death earlier yesterday. “The verdicts announced against me have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate,” Hasina said in a statement issued from hiding in India. “They are biased and politically motivated,” she
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
RSS