Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

24 February 2003

AFGHANISTAN

• U.S. and NATO officials are talking about giving the alliance a greater role in Afghanistan, perhaps taking over control of the year-old international peacekeeping force in the country. “What is being proposed is that NATO would do more for the next deployment involving Canada, which has volunteered to take over from the Netherlands and Germany,” NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson said Thursday. “We’ll be examining that over next few weeks to see whether there is a consensus on it, whether it makes sense, how best the job can be done,” he told a Washington news conference. Also on his visit to Washington, Lord Robertson appealed on Thursday for cooler heads on both sides of the Atlantic after a rift in the alliance over U.S. plans for war with Iraq. “On both sides of the Atlantic people need to cool down, get things into perspective,” Lord Robertson said, “and recognize that the values that unite this alliance in a volatile world are worth protecting.” (AP 211527 Feb 03)
  
  
• Germany has no plans to pull out of Afghanistan if there is a war in Iraq, a German spokesman for the multi-national security force in the country said on Sunday. German Defence Minister Peter Struck told a news conference in Berlin last Friday the threat to foreigners in Afghanistan could worsen in the event of a war in Iraq and it was possible to evacuate peacekeeping troops within a week if necessary. (Reuters 231203 GMT Feb 03)
  

IRAQ

• Turkey’s foreign minister said on Sunday a deal to let U.S. troops use the country as a base for any attack on Iraq was close, but issues such as control of northern Iraqi cities and oil fields needed final agreement. Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis told reporters a cabinet meeting on Monday might decide to send the deal to parliament for ratification. “A measure is possible at the cabinet tomorrow but first we have to put the finishing touches to the negotiations,” the Anatolian news agency quoted him as saying. Ruling party leader Tayyip Erdogan said there were no immediate plans to go to parliament. Foreign Minister Yakis told the CNN Turk channel earlier in the day that Turkey wanted to ensure U.S. weapons did not end up in the hands of Kurdish rebel groups during any war and that Turkish forces would be under Turkish command. He said Turkey was also worried over who would control Iraqi oil fields around the cities of Kirkuk and Mosul if the United States invades over Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. (Reuters 232024 GMT Feb 03)
  
  
• Britain and the United States will make a “last push for peace” as they try to secure a new United Nations resolution ordering Iraq to disarm, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office said, as the two nations began a final diplomatic offensive to win support for their tough stand. A Downing Street spokesman said Saturday that the draft resolution would come to a vote by mid-March, giving Iraqi President Saddam Hussein three weeks to give up his chemical and biological weapons or face military attack. (AP 231501 Feb 03)
  
  
• Greece said on Sunday that U.S. military officials were expected to meet exiled Iraqi generals opposed to President Saddam Hussein in Athens this week. Press Minister and chief government spokesman Christos Protopappas denied a report by the To Vima newspaper that two generals close to Saddam would attend the meeting on Wednesday. To Vima, quoting Greek defence ministry sources, had said the meeting, involving retired U.S. general Anthony Zinni, was part of European Union efforts to head off a war with Iraq. (Reuters 231212 GMT Feb 03)
  

BALKANS

• Britain and France will unveil proposals on Monday for the European Union to take over the international peacekeeping mission in Bosnia from NATO, as it will do next month in Macedonia (sic), diplomats said on Friday in Brussels. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin will put the joint plan to EU foreign ministers at their regular monthly meeting in Brussels in a sign that sharp differences over Iraq have not frozen all Franco-British cooperation, they said. (Reuters 211755 GMT Feb 03)
  
  
• Serbian Prime Minister Djindjic has survived an alleged assassination attempt on Friday when a truck driver cut across his speeding motorcade, police officials said on Sunday. The police officer’s version of events confirmed a report carried by Serbia’s state-run television on Saturday. (AP 231337 Feb 03)
  
  
• Amid renewed Western pressure, the foreign minister warned in comments published on Sunday that Serbia and Montenegro faces isolation if international demands for the arrest of key war crimes suspects are not met. In an interview with Vecernje Novosti daily, Goran Svilanovic said that any U.S. and European support for Belgrade’s pro-democracy authorities fully depends on their cooperation with the UN war crimes court in The Hague. Reflecting widespread mistrust, outgoing President Kostunica blasted the court late on Saturday, saying it has a “destabilizing” effect on the country. Speaking on Politika television, President Kostunica said that The Hague tribunal is a huge apparatus that exists only “for itself.” He said The Hague’s war crimes cases should be handled by local courts. (AP 231225 Feb 03)
  
  
• Ten former Yugoslav army officers and rebel Serb leaders - some already charged by the UN war crimes court - have been indicted for the deadly wartime shelling of the Croatian city of Vukovar, a district prosecutor said Saturday in Zagreb. The indictment was completed earlier this week following years of investigation, he added, the state-run news agency HINA reported. (AP 221354 Feb 03)