NATO leaders head for Istanbul next week hoping to avoid new splits over Iraq, amid simmering discord over calls for it to play a larger role there at a time when it is already stretched in Afghanistan.
US-led pressure for the Alliance to do more in Iraq comes as it battles to meet its commitments to extend a peacekeeping force beyond the Afghan capital Kabul, to help secure the country ahead of planned September elections.
In Istanbul next Monday and Tuesday, NATO is expected to declare itself ready to fulfill those pledges -- specifically to set up five Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in northern Afghanistan, as well as sending reinforcements for the polls.
But the battle to secure the resources from NATO member states has been painfully difficult, a process which risks compromising the credibility of an Alliance seeking to present itself as a key force in the global war on terror.
NATO took command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan last August, in its first-ever mission outside Europe, and was given the green light by the UN a short time later to extend it outside Kabul.
Eight months later, it is in charge of only one PRT, in the northern city of Kunduz, run by the German army.
"Whenever we enter into a political commitment to undertake an operation, we must have a clear idea beforehand as to what forces we have available to honor this commitment," NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in London last Friday.
On Iraq, NATO has never really recovered from its divisions in the run-up to last year's war -- when it was plunged into the most serious crisis in its 55-year history amid a split between pro- and anti-war factions.
Sixteen months after that crisis, the US is pushing for NATO to take on a bigger role than its current one of providing logistical support to Poland in running its sector of a stabilization force.
But France and Germany -- which sparked the the crisis in February last year -- are again resisting the call.
To add to the potential for rifts, the Istanbul summit comes two days before the June 30 handover of sovereignty from the US-led occupation force to an interim Iraqi government.
With Paris and Berlin blocking any suggestion of NATO troops on the ground, one key option under consideration is for the Alliance to help train Iraqi troops. Officials stress this would only be possible if Iraq requested it.
Decisions expected at the Istanbul summit include the formal end to the NATO-led SFOR mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which will be handed over to the EU at the end of the year.
NATO will also trumpet a new strategy of strengthening cooperation with Muslim states around the Mediterranean basin, although leaders of these countries will not be in Istanbul.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS