Talks Fail to Resolve NATO Rift
BRUSSELS, Belgium (Feb. 11) - France, Germany and Belgium refused Tuesday to lift their veto of U.S.-backed plans to bolster Turkish defenses against a possible Iraqi missile attack, leaving NATO mired in one of the worst crises in the alliance's 53-year history.
After two postponements while ''intensive'' talks were held informally, ambassadors from the 19 NATO countries came together for a second day of emergency consultations Tuesday evening, only to adjourn 20 minutes later.
''Right now we do not have a conclusion,'' NATO spokesman Yves Brodeur said afterward. ''Consultations between capitals'' would continue through the night, he said, and the ambassadors would reconvene at 9:45 a.m. (0845 GMT) Wednesday.
''It is a serious issue and everyone is committed to work hard to try to find a solution to it,'' he said.
Asked if there were any new proposals, Brodeur said: ''There are a number of options that have been discussed.'' He refused to elaborate.
Diplomats said France, Germany and Belgium had not changed their positions. Brodeur, while refusing to comment directly, said only that the ''context'' of the dispute ''has not really changed.''
The division in the alliance threatens the Bush administration's attempts to muster support in the U.N. Security Council for military action against Iraq. France and Germany, joined by Russia and China, are seeking more time for beefed-up U.N. inspections in a proposal opposed by Washington.
NATO's disarray also casts doubt on the future of an alliance founded to fight the Cold War, which has spent the past years seeking to reinvent itself as a force to confront terrorism or rogue states, but has been unable to agree even on modest defensive measures to protect one of its members.
The crisis, which has been bubbling for almost a month, came to a head Monday when, in an unprecedented move, the French, Germans and Belgians rebuffed a direct appeal for help from Turkey issued under NATO's mutual defense treaty. Crisis talks began Monday but ended with no agreement.
Diplomats suggested Tuesday a changing in the wording of the Turkish request to stress the need to reassure anxious civilians, rather than prepare for war, could clear the way for a compromise, although they added any final decision could still be delayed until the end of this week.
Washington, backed by 15 allies, wants NATO to begin planning to send Turkey AWACS early warning planes, Patriot anti-missile batteries and units trained to counter chemical and biological weapons.
They say those measures are needed urgently to protect Turkey - the only NATO nations bordering Iraq - from an Iraqi missile strike, as the United States prepares to move troops into Turkey that could be used to open up a northern front in any Iraq war.
France and its supporters argue starting the military planning would set NATO on a path to war and undermine efforts to find a peaceful solution.
Playing down the threat to Turkey, they say any decision on NATO's planning should be delayed until at least Friday's report to the Security Council from U.N. weapons inspectors on Iraq's cooperation with the inspections.
The split has plunged the North Atlantic Treaty Organization into what some at alliance headquarters said was its worst crisis since the dispute over the deployment in Europe of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in the early 1980s.
Some diplomats even compared it to that in mid-1960s, when then French President Gen. Charles de Gaulle pulled his country from the alliance military structure and forced NATO to move its headquarters from Paris to Brussels.
The veto by France, Germany and Belgium was condemned by the United States and most other European allies, who fear it sends a signal of disunity to Saddam Hussein and strikes at the heart of NATO's all-for-one, one-for-all defense pledge.
''This is the most fundamental rule in NATO, on which we, too, base our security,'' Norway's Defense Minister Kristin Krohn Devold said in Oslo, adding that she was appalled by France, Germany and Belgium's decision.
''You cannot say Turkey doesn't feel threatened,'' said Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in The Hague, Netherlands. ''There is one man and one regime that can profit from this (division): Saddam Hussein.''
In Washington, President George W. Bush, said: ''It affects the alliance in a negative way when you are not able to make a statement of mutual defense.''
''Upset is not the proper word,'' Bush said when reporters asked for his views on France's diplomacy. ''I am disappointed that France would block NATO from helping a country like Turkey to prepare.''
Washington's supporters hoped the holdouts would be swayed by NATO's senior military official, German Gen. Harald Kujat, who gave the 19 allies a classified briefing Monday on the potential dangers to Turkey from Iraq, including, diplomats said, from Scud missiles tipped with poison gas or germ-warfare agents.
However, Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul acknowledged the dispute went beyond the question of helping his country to the deeper divisions within the alliance.
''There is no doubt that Turkey is not the target here,'' Gul told reporters in Ankara. ''A diplomatic battle is going on.''
Without NATO agreement, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said Washington will take its own steps to defend Turkey. The Netherlands is already preparing to send its Patriot missile units to Turkey without waiting for NATO.
In the wider context, NATO will not play a direct role in any U.S.-led offensive war against Iraq. Instead, as in 1991, Washington will rely on help from a coalition of willing allies, such as Britain and Australia. Germany has ruled out any participation in a war, but France, which participated in 1991, has yet to exclude joining such a coalition again as a last resort if peace efforts fail.
Although they may play little role in the fighting, the Europeans may be called upon by Washington to share the burden of stabilizing and rebuilding a postwar Iraq. The 15-nation European Union has called an emergency summit for Monday to discuss the Iraq crisis.
AP-NY-02-11-03 1322EST
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. |
