Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

27 May 2003

NATO

• Secretary General Lord Robertson said Monday that the alliance has quickly overcome divisions sparked by the war in Iraq. “NATO has overcome these problems, and our decision to take over the stabilization force in Afghanistan and to go ahead with planning for helping Poland in Iraq shows how fast NATO has picked up speed,” he told reporters after meeting with Czech Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla. Speaking to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly later in the day, he warned against further divisions within the alliance. “We can afford a crisis only once in 10 years,” Lord Robertson added. In a speech to the assembly, he warned that terrorism now “is far more lethal than before.” For an effective defense against the new threats, two key tools are necessary, he said. “First, we need modern, effective military capabilities,” and “Of course, capabilities alone are not enough. We must also have the will to use them.” He also said that NATO would welcome new members in the future. (AP 262018 May 03)

EU

• Germany has dropped objections to a possible European Union peacekeeping mission in Congo, making a first military operation in Africa by the 15-nation bloc more likely, diplomats said on Monday. EU diplomats said Berlin was initially cool to the request by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, arguing that Congo was a long way from Europe, a difficult military challenge and a conflict on which there was no agreed EU foreign policy. But Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana last Friday that while Germany was unlikely to participate, it would not block such action, the diplomats said. Solana is expected to make a recommendation to the next EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg on June 16 after receiving a report from a French military reconnaissance mission in Congo’s Bunia region, and a more detailed request from Annan. France would probably be the lead nation in a brigade-sized European force that would likely include some British troops but would not need to use NATO military assets, the sources said. (Reuters 261523 GMT May 03)

IRAQ

• A team of international experts is visiting Iraq to inspect mobile labs that the United States believes were part of a suspected biological weapons program, a top U.S. military commander said Monday. Meanwhile, UN nuclear inspectors were preparing to return to the country to conduct a damage assessment of Iraq’s largest nuclear facility. (AP 261838 May 03)

IRAN

• A Russian-built nuclear power plant in Iran that has raised strong U.S. concerns it could be used to make nuclear weapons is set to go online on schedule, the Russian Atomic Energy Agency said Monday. The comments came after Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev met with the deputy head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Asadullah Saburi, according to a report by ITAR-Tass news agency. The ministry said the work schedule had been adjusted, according to the report, but that the first reactor at the plant in the southern port city of Bushehr would still start work on time. The plant, Iran’s first, is set to start operation next year. (AP 261904 May 03)

BALKANS

• Prosecutors from the UN war crimes tribunal on Monday handed over to Croatian justice authorities material they said could prove key in the trial of two Croats suspected of committing atrocities against 19 Serb civilians. The UN court has gathered the evidence in an effort to shed light on the murder of minority Serbs in a shooting spree that occurred during Croatia’s war for independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. However, the court never issued an indictment and decided to cede the case to Croatia’s domestic judiciary, which indicted the two ex-soldiers, Nikola Ivankovic and Enes Viteskovic, earlier this year, the state-run news agency HINA reported. (AP 261722 May 03)

OTHER NEWS

• The U.S.-backed peace plan for the Middle East won praise from both Israeli and Arab officials on Monday when they met on the island of Crete at a meeting organised by the European Union. Diplomats said participants in the talks, held a day after the Israeli cabinet approved the plan, sent out strong signals that the “road map” to peace was a workable blueprint for peace. “We are at the start of a new era in the Middle East,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher told reporters after meeting his Israeli counterpart Silvan Shalom on the sidelines of the EU-Mediterranean meeting which continues on Tuesday. Israeli Foreign Minister Shalom, who also met his counterparts from Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, said Arab countries were more “courageous” after the toppling of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and could now contribute more actively to peace in the region. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the fact that Syria had sent its foreign minister to the meeting, after sending low-level delegations for eight years, was a sign of hope. “That is a sign that things are moving,” he added. (Reuters 261958 GMT May 03)