Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

31 October 2003

NATO

• President Putin on Thursday tried to reassure NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson that Russia remains committed to expanding cooperation with the alliance, which has been troubled by recent confrontational statements from Moscow. President Putin thanked Lord Robertson for helping build warmer ties between NATO and Russia. “Maybe we were the right men in the right place at the right time,” Lord Robertson said, hailing Putin’s role. “A new NATO and a new Russia together are going to be a powerful new influence on the world,” he added. (AP 301159 Oct 03)

AFGHANISTAN

• The commander of ISAF said on Thursday that Taliban and al Qaeda guerrillas could launch attacks on “soft targets” akin to this week’s suicide bombing of the Red Cross in Baghdad. “The quality of the potential threat has intensified,” General Goetz Glimeroth told reporters at one of ISAF headquarters. He was speaking after holding talks with NATO’s top soldier, U.S. General James Jones, who travelled to Afghanistan to see for himself how ISAF could take control of so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams. (Reuters 301445 GMT Oct 03)
  
  
• France is waiting for NATO to clarify its peacekeeping mission outside Kabul before deciding whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, the French military’s chief of staff said Thursday in Kabul. “We don’t know what the mission will be of the expanded ISAF,” Gen. Henri Bentegeat said. “It’s too early for us.” He said the issue was being discussed by NATO but did not elaborate. Gen. Bentegeat said that he was impressed by the new Afghan troops, and that their presence was also appreciated by Afghans. “The Afghan national army is now a reality,” he added. (AP 301616 Oct 03)
  
  
• A high-level UN Security Council mission heads to Afghanistan on Friday night to bolster the peace process and to tell warlords to support the central government led by President Hamid Karzai. Germany’s UN Ambassador Gunter Pleuger, who is leading the council mission, told a news conference that a key purpose “is to signal to the Afghans, to the government, the continuing international commitment to the peace and reconstruction process in Afghanistan.” As a sign of the mission’s importance, the United States, Britain, France, Mexico, Spain and Bulgaria are also sending their ambassadors, and Russia and Pakistan their deputy ambassadors. Security Council members also want to discuss ways to improve security, and how the newly adopted resolution expanding the NATO-led force beyond Kabul can best be used to expand the authority of President Karzai’s government throughout the country, Ambassador Pleuger added. (AP 310530 Oct 03)

BALKANS

• Security has “vastly improved” across most of Kosovo, but too many people silently tolerate ethnic violence in the UN-administered region where almost 60 percent of the people are unemployed, the top UN official in Kosovo said. Harri Holkeri, in a report Thursday to the Security Council after 11 weeks on the job, said “security and the rule of law remain my highest priority.” (AP 310207 Oct 03)

OTHER NEWS

• The vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, said Thursday that Slovenia has a right to decide for itself whether to send troops to Iraq. “It’s an absolutely sovereign issue,” Gen. Pace told reporters as he toured army barracks in Novo Mesto in Slovenia. “It is totally within the decision and discretion of your government.” Gen. Pace also commended the Slovene army, saying it was “extremely well prepared” to join NATO. (AP 301203 Oct 03)