Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

05 February 2004

IRAQ

• President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday told the head of NATO that any French involvement in Iraq, after the transition of power takes place mid-year, depends on what Iraqis themselves want and what the United Nations will support. President Chirac made the remarks during a meeting with Mr. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, according to the president’s office. The French president did not publicly address the question of what - if any - participation France would bring to any eventual NATO mission. (AP 042121 Feb 04)

AFGHANISTAN

• Defence ministers from the five nations which make up Eurocorps meet this week to discuss taking command of NATO’s peacekeeping headquarters in Kabul after Canada pulls out in August, officials said on Wednesday. A spokesman for the Eurocorps said the ministers would meet in Munich, Germany, on Friday after a meeting with their counterparts from the 19-nation NATO alliance. “A decision to take command is a possibility, but it has not yet been decided by the member nations and it would have to be approved by NATO,” Colonel Toussaint told the Reuters news agency by phone from Eurocorps’ headquarters in Strasbourg. A NATO official said there were “indications” that the Eurocorps was prepared to become operational commander of ISAF in the Afghan capital. (Reuters 041722 GMT Feb 04)

BALKANS

• Bosnia risks failing in its bid for closer ties with NATO and the EU this year because of bickering between its Muslim, Serb and Croat politicians, the West’s peace overseer Paddy Ashdown said. The international community’s High Representative and EU Special Envoy said progress was disappointing on key issues, including defence reform and state-level law enforcement. He said he would not use sweeping powers to impose legislation and sack or appoint officials to end deadlocks. Ashdown said security, law and order were fundamental. (Reuters 041430 GMT Feb 04)

EU

• The European Union appears ready to lift a 14-year-old arms embargo on China, despite U.S. concerns, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was quoted as saying on Wednesday. But in a brief interview with Geneva newspaper Le Temps, he said lifting the embargo would not necessarily result in more weapons being sold. He said that China’s leaders belonged to a “different generation” to that which ordered the crushing of the pro-democracy protests. But the move would be essentially a “political gesture,” he added. (Reuters 041329 GMT Feb 04)