Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

20 February 2004

NATO

• NATO’s secretary general said the military alliance will help Greece deal with massive security commitments for the Aug. 13-29 Olympics. “NATO can assist, NATO will assist, NATO is in a position to assist,” Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said after talks with Greek Foreign Minister Giannitsis in Athens. (AP 192056 Feb 04)

BALKANS

• Germany’s defense minister said Thursday that Bosnia and Serbia-Montenegro cannot join NATO’s Partnership for Peace program until the UN tribunal’s two top war crimes fugitives are arrested. Defense Minister Peter Struck said Bosnian and Serbo-Montenegrin officials should not be under any illusions that the West is ready to ease up on pressure to bring Bosnian Serb wartime leader Karadzic and his army commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, to justice. (AP 191659 Feb 04)
  
  
• Peacekeepers raided a radio station run by the daughter of top Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic on Thursday, a Reuters news agency eyewitness and local media said. SFOR troops were seen in a telecommunications building in Pale and later moved to the Sveti Jovan radio station. SFOR has raided the station several times since the war. (Reuters 191603 GMT Feb 04)

AFGHANISTAN

• Turkey is willing to consider sending more troops into Afghanistan, Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said, as NATO struggles to find nations to deploy peacekeepers there. He met on Thursday with NATO’s chief Mr. de Hoop Scheffer on the alliance’s role in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans ahead of a NATO summit in Istanbul in June. “Turkey can make serious contributions to ... stability and security in Afghanistan and also to fighting the terrorist threat,” Mr. De Hoop Scheffer said, after separate talks with Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. (AP 191518 Feb 04)

IRAQ

• NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the alliance stood ready to help any member state which ran the multi-national division in Iraq, but declined to say when NATO-led troops might go to Iraq. Mr. De Hoop Scheffer said he did not know if the alliance would be ready by the time of a June summit in Istanbul to make a decision on sending its own mission. “It is important we see a legitimate government in Iraq which is supported by the UN,” he added. (Reuters 191353 GMT Feb 04)

WAR ON TERRORISM

• EU justice and interior ministers rejected on Thursday Austria’s proposal to create a CIA-style agency to boost security cooperation in the fight against terrorism and weapons proliferation in Europe. In a discussion paper presented to EU ministers, Austria called for a European Intelligence Agency, which it said would be “a center for analysis and monitoring, focusing on terrorism and proliferation.” The paper said events such as the Iraq war and a spate of letter bombs sent to European officials highlighted the need for an information network as part of a wider EU security strategy. But Ireland, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said there was agreement among EU states the bloc needed to increase existing cooperation among the EU’s police agency, Europol, and other bodies instead of creating a European CIA. (Reuters 191602 GMT Feb 04)

RUSSIA

• Russia has developed ballistic missile technology that can outwit any defensive system, a top Russian general said on Thursday, in a clear challenge to the United States’ planned $50 billion anti-missile shield. First Deputy Chief of Staff Colonel-General Yury Baluyevsky said that during large-scale military exercises on Wednesday, Russia had test-launched a missile system that could manoeuvre in mid-flight, allowing it to dodge defences. (Reuters 192328 GMT Feb 04)