NATO talks Afghan tactics, debate leader
Sunday, 5 April 2009
STRASBOURG, France, April 4 (AFP): NATO leaders began talks Saturday to plan a new Afghan strategy at the alliance's 60th anniversary summit on the Rhine, amid disagreement over its future secretary general.
The leaders were to discuss a new strategy for Afghanistan focused first on providing security for key elections in August, after failing Friday to agree on a successor to take over the leadership of the organisation in July.
President Nicolas Sarkozy met his 27 NATO counterparts at the centre of a monumental footbridge connecting France and Germany, and they were ushered under tight security to talks in Strasbourg, which is besieged by protesters.
But, while the demonstrators managed to create disturbances and block some routes to the summit venue, the most obvious delay to proceedings was caused by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's latest diplomatic gaffe.
Arriving on the German side of the river to be greeted on a red carpet by summit co-host Chancellor Angela Merkel before the walk to the French side, the Italian leader left his car still talking on his mobile telephone.
He turned his back on his host and walked to the river bank still talking. Merkel appeared at first amused and then exasperated, and the other leaders left Berlusconi behind when they left for the bridge crossing ceremony.
Following two days of attempts to breach the security cordon around the summit, anti-war protesters split into smaller groups and attempted to block several road junctions throughout the French city.
Riot police fired teargas to repulse a group of 1,000 protesters who tried to cross a bridge into the city centre, but another group managed to breach the outer security perimeter and block a tramline serving the venue.
There were 25 arrests in the early clashes, which followed two days of violence on both sides of the Rhine.
Most of the allies are thought to back Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to take on the post in July, and Germany's Merkel had pushed publicly for his appointment to be agreed Friday.
But Turkey was angered by Rasmussen's failure to sanction Danish cartoonists who mocked the Prophet Mohammed and to close down a Denmark-based television channel which Ankara says is a mouthpiece of Kurdish separatist rebels.
Aside from finding a successor to current secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the 60th anniversary summit will be dominated by Afghanistan, where Obama is pushing for a renewed push to defeat an Al-Qaeda-backed insurgency.
Earlier report says: President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and two dozen other NATO leaders walked across a bridge separating Germany and France in a moment of symbolic unity Saturday ahead of a summit likely to see disagreements about Afghanistan and the alliance's future.
The European allies have pledged a marginal increase in forces keyed to preparations for Afghanistan's national elections in August. The Obama administration has said it cannot shoulder the military burden alone, but it is now pinning its main hopes on more civilian contributions from Europe, particularly police trainers.
NATO's ability to succeed in Afghanistan is seen as a crucial test of the power and relevance of a 60-year-old alliance founded to counterbalance the Soviet Union but now fighting a rising insurgency far beyond its borders. Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have enthusiastically endorsed Obama's new Afghan strategy but European leaders and voters remain deeply skeptical about whether more troops can stabilise a country devastated by decades of war.
For Saturday's closing conference, Obama and the allies were turning to vexing issues facing NATO six decades after it was formed as a bulwark against the former Soviet Union and as a spur to the kind of European integration that the co-hosts of the summit, former World War II enemies France and Germany, exemplify. They also were welcoming two new members, Croatia and Albania.
The leaders are expected to issue a declaration Saturday to launch formally a project creating such a "strategic concept."
The allies were expected to declare in a closing communique that they endorse a united way forward in Afghanistan, with more emphasis on nonmilitary aspects of the struggle.
The leaders were to discuss a new strategy for Afghanistan focused first on providing security for key elections in August, after failing Friday to agree on a successor to take over the leadership of the organisation in July.
President Nicolas Sarkozy met his 27 NATO counterparts at the centre of a monumental footbridge connecting France and Germany, and they were ushered under tight security to talks in Strasbourg, which is besieged by protesters.
But, while the demonstrators managed to create disturbances and block some routes to the summit venue, the most obvious delay to proceedings was caused by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's latest diplomatic gaffe.
Arriving on the German side of the river to be greeted on a red carpet by summit co-host Chancellor Angela Merkel before the walk to the French side, the Italian leader left his car still talking on his mobile telephone.
He turned his back on his host and walked to the river bank still talking. Merkel appeared at first amused and then exasperated, and the other leaders left Berlusconi behind when they left for the bridge crossing ceremony.
Following two days of attempts to breach the security cordon around the summit, anti-war protesters split into smaller groups and attempted to block several road junctions throughout the French city.
Riot police fired teargas to repulse a group of 1,000 protesters who tried to cross a bridge into the city centre, but another group managed to breach the outer security perimeter and block a tramline serving the venue.
There were 25 arrests in the early clashes, which followed two days of violence on both sides of the Rhine.
Most of the allies are thought to back Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to take on the post in July, and Germany's Merkel had pushed publicly for his appointment to be agreed Friday.
But Turkey was angered by Rasmussen's failure to sanction Danish cartoonists who mocked the Prophet Mohammed and to close down a Denmark-based television channel which Ankara says is a mouthpiece of Kurdish separatist rebels.
Aside from finding a successor to current secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the 60th anniversary summit will be dominated by Afghanistan, where Obama is pushing for a renewed push to defeat an Al-Qaeda-backed insurgency.
Earlier report says: President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and two dozen other NATO leaders walked across a bridge separating Germany and France in a moment of symbolic unity Saturday ahead of a summit likely to see disagreements about Afghanistan and the alliance's future.
The European allies have pledged a marginal increase in forces keyed to preparations for Afghanistan's national elections in August. The Obama administration has said it cannot shoulder the military burden alone, but it is now pinning its main hopes on more civilian contributions from Europe, particularly police trainers.
NATO's ability to succeed in Afghanistan is seen as a crucial test of the power and relevance of a 60-year-old alliance founded to counterbalance the Soviet Union but now fighting a rising insurgency far beyond its borders. Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have enthusiastically endorsed Obama's new Afghan strategy but European leaders and voters remain deeply skeptical about whether more troops can stabilise a country devastated by decades of war.
For Saturday's closing conference, Obama and the allies were turning to vexing issues facing NATO six decades after it was formed as a bulwark against the former Soviet Union and as a spur to the kind of European integration that the co-hosts of the summit, former World War II enemies France and Germany, exemplify. They also were welcoming two new members, Croatia and Albania.
The leaders are expected to issue a declaration Saturday to launch formally a project creating such a "strategic concept."
The allies were expected to declare in a closing communique that they endorse a united way forward in Afghanistan, with more emphasis on nonmilitary aspects of the struggle.