SHAPE News Morning Update

16 July 2003

NATO

• Hungary has made meaningful progress in the process of integrating its armed forces into NATO, an alliance commander said Tuesday. Last year, NATO officials said Hungary had failed to live up to some of the commitments it had made before joining the alliance in 1999. But the country had since made a “significant accomplishment,” said U.S. Navy Adm. Gregory G. Johnson, commander in chief of NATO Allied Forces Southern Europe. Adm. Johnson, who met Tuesday with Lt. Gen. Zoltan Szenes, Hungary’s Chief of Defense Staff, praised the efforts to transform the partially conscription-based armed forces into a professional, all-volunteer corps before 2006. He said that Hungary was now on schedule to participate in a 2005 military exercise that would serve to certify the compatibility and integration of the country’s armed forces within NATO. (AP 151644 Jul 03)

IRAQ

• The United States and Turkey expressed regret on Tuesday at a dispute between the NATO allies over the arrest of 11 Turkish commandos by U.S. troops in Iraq and “the treatment which Turkish soldiers faced in detention.” “Both sides regretted the incident occurring between allies and the treatment which Turkish soldiers faced in detention,” said the joint statement released by the Turkish military. The United States said it had yet to approve the statement, signed by U.S. and Turkish generals, but expected this to happen soon. Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper said a Turkish military liaison officer would be posted in Baghdad. (Reuters 152105 GMT Jul 03)
  
  
• President Jacques Chirac, speaking on Tuesday for the first time about the possibility of France sending troops to Iraq, reiterated his country’s position that this was not on the cards. President Chirac’s spokeswoman said he made the comments in a meeting with Czech President Vaclav Klaus. “As the foreign minister has indicated, this is inconceivable in the current framework,” spokeswoman Catherine Colonna said, referring to a hypothetical French military role in Iraq. (Reuters 151411 GMT Jul 03)

EU

• Presidents Carlo Azeglio Ciampi of Italy and Costis Stephanopoulos of Greece on Tuesday said they supported efforts to bolster the European Union with common policies and a stronger defense. “To limit the union to a purely economic body ... without common policies and a common military force could lead to its stagnation and undermine its presence in world affairs,” the Greek President said in Athens. (AP 151920 Jul 03)

OTHER NEWS

• In a surprise break with the Bush administration, the Republican-led House is moving to scale back a nuclear weapons development plan that includes research into new “bunker-busting” nuclear warheads. “Unfortunately, the Department of Energy continues to ask Congress to fund a Cold War nuclear arsenal, and the nuclear weapons complex necessary to maintain that arsenal, even though we no longer face a Cold War adversary,” said David Hobson, chairman of the subcommittee that removed the funds. In a recent meeting with reporters, Energy Undersecretary Linton Brooks said the proposed earth-penetrating nuclear warheads and research into low-yield nuclear weapons will “preserve the capability to adapt to changing times” and is not intended to restart an arms race. (AP 152203 Jul 03)