Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

2 April 2003

IRAK

• U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell will seek Turkey’s agreement on Wednesday not to send any large force into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq for fear it could undermine the U.S.-led war against Baghdad. “The situation (in northern Iraq) is pretty stable and so we see absolutely nothing that would require such an incursion,” Powell said on Tuesday of the latest source of tension between the two NATO allies. With a U.S. aid deal at stake for Turkey, Powell spoke of a “lingering sense of disappointment” since Ankara’s parliament denied permission for up to 62,000 U.S. troops to use Turkish territory to open a “northern front” against Iraq. (Reuters 012354 GMT Apr 03)

NATO

• The German government has decided against taking part in a new NATO naval deployment in the western Mediterranean meant as a precaution against terrorist attacks, Defense Minister Peter Struck said Tuesday in Berlin. Struck told reporters that offers from “enough other NATO states” to provide six speedboats for the mission made German participation unnecessary. He did not elaborate. A German frigate is already participating in NATO’s Active Endeavor operation to patrol the eastern Mediterranean. German frigates are also patrolling shipping lanes off the Horn of Africa. (AP 011626 Apr 03)
  
  
• Poland’s Cabinet decided on Tuesday to send troops trained for chemical warfare protection to Turkey as part of NATO’s defenses against a possible Iraqi attack on its neighbor. The 60 soldiers’ mission, which requires approval by President Aleksander Kwasniewski, is due to begin Friday and run through Sept. 30, government spokesman Michal Tober said. “As a credible NATO member, we have a moral and political duty to extend such support,” Tober said after the decision by Prime Minister Leszek Miller’s Cabinet. (AP 011548 Apr 03)

EU

• France said on Tuesday a defence summit of European Union states opposed to the Iraq war should be thrown open to others, after Italy complained a select meeting could exacerbate Europe’s rift over Iraq. France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg -- four EU nations opposed to the U.S.-led war -- agreed last month to meet in Brussels on April 29 to discuss closer defence cooperation. Backers of the war including Britain, Italy and Spain were not part of the initiative, but Paris said the Belgian-hosted event should be turned into an EU-wide meeting. “It would be preferable,” Defence Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau told the Reuters news agency by telephone. “We want this to be as open as possible. It shouldn’t just be a meeting of a few... We want the results coming out of this to be as positive as possible,” he added, noting Britain’s major role in defence initiatives. Italian officials earlier said they would urge Greece, current holder of the rotating EU presidency, to take up its request for wider participation of the summit. There was no official comment from Britain. But a British government source said it was unlikely to attend unless it was turned into a full-blown EU event. “If it was organised by the EU presidency and was a full EU event, then Britain would attend,” the source said. (Reuters 011207 GMT Apr 03)
  
  
• Seven smaller EU countries warned late on Tuesday against setting up a permanent presidency of the European Union bloc, and called for the retention of the existing six-month rotating presidency amongst its members. “We stick to the principle of a six-month rotating system,” Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker told a news conference, flanked by his Irish, Belgian, Finnish, Austrian, Dutch and Portuguese colleagues. “We think the European Union does not need any new institutions,” Juncker added. “I think it’s very important to send a clear signal to the president of the European Convention how we are considering these institutional aspects,” Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende said. Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt agreed. “It was a tactical and strategic meeting,” he said. (Reuters 020038 GMT Apr 03)

BALKANS

• NATO-led peacekeepers accused the Bosnian Serb leadership on Tuesday of supporting spying by its military intelligence unit against the international peace force and other agencies in Bosnia. SFOR said it had found evidence during a raid on Bosnian Serb offices on March 7 that the 410th military intelligence unit was engaged in a number of serious anti-Dayton activities. A SFOR spokesman told a news conference that the Bosnian Serb army had collected and maintained intelligence on SFOR, the office of the International High Representative, as well as other facilities and private individuals. Local media said the Bosnian Serb military intelligence exchanged information with the Serbian counter-intelligence service KOS, but SFOR declined to comment on this. (Reuters 011312 GMT Apr 03)
  
  
• U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell will visit Belgrade on Wednesday to offer his condolences on the death of assassinated Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and stress the U.S. commitment to help Serbia and Montenegro fight organized crime and political extremism. The State Department said in a statement Powell will meet Svetozar Marovic, the president of Serbia and Montenegro, and the new Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic in Belgrade. He also plans to pay a condolence call on Djindjic’s widow. (Reuters 012128 GMT Apr 03)

RUSSIA

• A Russian navy squadron is set to depart for the Indian Ocean next week in the largest naval deployment since the Soviet times, a news agency reported. When the Russian navy ships reach the Indian Ocean, they plan to take part in joint maneuvers with the Indian navy, the Interfax-Military News Agency reported, quoting an unidentified official at the General Staff of the Russian armed forces. Participating in the voyage are the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship missile cruiser Moskva, escort ships Pytlivy and Smetlivy, landing ship Cesar Kunikov and several supply ships. The Pacific Fleet is sending anti-submarine ships Marshal Shaposhnikov and Admiral Panteleyev and a tanker, the agency reported. It said the ships were scheduled to set out to sea from next Tuesday. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has said repeatedly that the naval deployment was unrelated to Iraq. In an interview published Tuesday, he reaffirmed that the Russian navy ships weren’t going to the Persian Gulf. The deployment “isn’t aggressive or directed against nations of the region,” Ivanov told the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda. Defense Minister Ivanov said joint maneuvers with the Indian navy was a possibility, but didn’t give any further details of the deployment. (AP 011304 Apr 03)
  
  
• Britain’s ambassador on Tuesday marked the completion of a British-funded project to build a water supply system for a Russian chemical weapons destruction facility, transferring ownership of the water supply to Russia. Ambassador Sir Roderic Lyne made the presentation to Zinovy Pak, director of Russia’s munitions agency, at the British Embassy in Moscow. “It is a significant step in our cooperation and demonstrates the good working partnership which has developed between the UK and Russia on the destruction of chemical weapons,” Lyne said, according to a statement from the embassy. The site in Shchuchye holds about 2 million shells, missile warheads and other munitions with deadly chemicals such as GB sarin and Russian VX gas - about 14 percent of Russia’s 40,000 tons of chemical weapons. (AP 011726 Apr 03)