NATO clinched a deal on Friday to start training Iraqi forces next month after the US, faced with resistance from France, agreed to shelve its demand that the mission come under US-led coalition command.
"This alliance is united on Iraq," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer declared after envoys from the 26 allied nations met for the sixth time in three days on an issue that rekindled tensions over last year's Iraq war.
He told a news conference that approximately 40 NATO officers would leave for Iraq early this month to help the insurgency-plagued government rebuild its ministry of defense and military headquarters.
Triumphant
US ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns sounded triumphant that NATO had agreed to have a genuine presence in Iraq and said he expected the training force to grow rapidly into the hundreds within months.
"The NATO flag is definitely going to be in Baghdad," he said.
"Today's decision for us represents the unification of NATO ... we've come together in a way that we could not a year and a half ago," he said.
Both Paris and Washington immediately claimed victory for their stand on the command arrangements, over which they have sparred since the middle of last week.
Washington had pressed for an immediate decision to put NATO's mission under the command of the US-led multinational force in Iraq, arguing this was essential to ensure the safety of NATO staff in a dangerous environment.
Wedge
France feared this would be the thin end of the wedge, inserting NATO into the Iraqi battlefield through a back door.
It resisted the US push for a "double-hatted" commander who would report to both NATO and a US general, saying the alliance could not be subordinate to one of its allies.
In the end, the allies decided to leave the decision on the exact relationship until the middle of next month.
Retreat
"The French, Germans and others forced the Americans to retreat," said a senior French diplomat.
But Burns told reporters that Washington was "very pleased" with the outcome because the principle of "unity of command" between the 160,000-strong multinational force and the alliance training mission had been agreed.
"Unity of command" appeared, however, only to mean coordination between the missions and security for NATO trainers.
"It's a distinct mission, so it's not ... integrated into the multinational force," de Hoop Scheffer said.
Symbolism
Diplomats said the command dispute was more about political symbolism than military security.
Some said Paris, Europe's fiercest opponent of last year's US-led invasion, wanted to avoid handing Washington any international support on Iraq that could enhance US President George W. Bush's chances of re-election.
Iraq's interim government has asked the alliance for military equipment, protection for UN personnel and training for both its regular forces and border guards.
NATO leaders promised the government support when they met in Istanbul last month.
Vague
However, the wording of the summit accord was left vague because of French and German resistance to an overt or collective role for the alliance in Iraq, forcing alliance envoys back around the table to agree on details.
France backed away this week from its initial objections to a NATO training mission inside Iraq. But, like Germany, it has vowed not to deploy any of its own personnel to the country.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing
RSS