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| Europe | ||
| US presses NATO to expand Iraq, Afghan forces | ||
| 2005-02-10 | ||
| NICE, France - NATO Defence chiefs gathered in Nice on Thursday for talks set to focus on boosting training for Iraqi security forces and expanding a peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, key fronts in the US war on terror. Meeting his NATO counterparts on the French riviera, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was notably expected to press them to commit to helping the Iraq mission either with staff or funds despite their divisions over the war there. Rumsfeld signalled progress even before the informal talks started over dinner Wednesday night, voicing hope that elections in Iraq last month had opened the way for European nations to set aside their differences. "I think people will increasingly want to be a part of that," said Rumsfeld. And a senior US official accompanying Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, also in Europe ahead of a summit trip by President George W. Bush later this month, said six or seven NATO countries had already offered to provide help. Another half a dozen nations were said to be considering making a contribution, either of training staff inside or outside Iraq or through a special trust fund set up to fund such projects. "I think there was a kind of coming together (on) the common purpose that the Iraqi people have given us to support their historic turn for the better," Rice told a news conference in Brussels. The US push comes ahead of President Bush's February 22 summit visit to Brussels, where he will meet NATO and EU counterparts in what Washington hopes will be a symbolic closing of the Iraq war chapter. While both sides seem keen to bury the hatchet, both Rice's and Rumsfeld's trips have been clouded notably by strains over Iran, as well as EU plans to lift an arms embargo on China, fiercely opposed by Washington. But one front certain to see good news this month is Afghanistan: NATO Defence ministers were expected to trumpet a decision to expand the 8,300-member NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). European NATO allies Spain, Italy and Lithuania are expected to offer to lead two more provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs), opening the way for ISAF's expanding into remote areas of western Afghanistan.
The Nice talks are the first such meeting in France for some four decades, in what some see as symbolizing an easing of French strains with the NATO alliance. Those tensions date from long before the Iraq crisis, starting even before General Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of NATO's integrated military command in 1966. "It is an interesting signal that they are no longer hung up about it," commented one diplomat.
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| Posted by:Steve White |