Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

27 February 2004

NATO

• Parliament voted unanimously to ratify the NATO accession treaty, with President Ion Iliescu hailing membership in the Western military alliance as a step that will bring the country greater security but also new responsibilities. President Iliescu said it was a moment of “satisfaction and joy,” and urged lawmakers to implement more reforms as it moves toward its next goal - joining the EU in 2007. (AP 261257 Feb 04)

IRAQ

• NATO’s secretary-general said that he hoped to see a new UN Security Council resolution authorising an alliance-led stabilisation force in Iraq before the United States hands over sovereignty on June 30. “It would indeed be a very good development if we could see before the first of July a new resolution in the Security Council of the UN giving a mandate to a stabilisation force,” Mr. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a joint news conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio in Toledo. “That would, I think be a very positive development although perhaps strictly legally speaking one could say we don’t know if that’s necessary but I consider it, from a political point of view, very important indeed,” he added. (Reuters 261551 GMT Feb 04)

TERRORISM

• Militants who trained with al Qaeda in Afghanistan have returned to Brussels as “sleepers” and may be planning attacks in the city that hosts the European Union and NATO, the capital’s police chief said. “Islamic fundamentalism is our main concern,” said Glenn Audenaert. “It is finding more and more ground in our Arabic community,” he added. Audenaert said he was also worried by the risk of frustrated unemployed youths from the city’s Muslim community joining one of 124 sects or groups known to operate in Brussels. (Reuters 261737 GMT Feb 04)

BALKANS

• Talks between the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo will resume in March, the top UN official in the disputed province said. Harri Holkeri said in an interview with The Associated Press that he had invited leaders in Belgrade to Pristina on March 4 to pick up the talks that have stalled since the they were launched in Vienna. (AP 261340 Feb 04)
  
  
• European Union foreign policy chief Solana will visit Skopje on Friday to urge Macedonia (sic) to keep pursuing national reconciliation and European integration after President Trajkovski died in a plane crash. “He wants to show support, to give his condolences and to show everybody that Trajkovski’s European agenda has to continue,” his spokeswoman said. (Reuters 261535 GMT Feb 04)

OTHER NEWS

• A U.S. plan for political reform in the Middle East is intended as advice, not a blueprint, a U.S. undersecretary of state said Thursday. Alan Larson was talking to reporters about the Greater Middle East Initiative, which has been criticized by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League. “One of the reasons I’ve come to Cairo, as well as other capitals in the Middle East, is to talk about and get advice from leaders about how, working together, we can promote constructive change and reform,” said Alan Larson, the U.S. undersecretary of state for economic, business and agricultural affairs. (AP 262110 Feb 04)
  
  
• The Bush administration will announce Friday that the Unit ed States will only use land mines that are designed to self-destruct but will not sign a 150-nation anti-land mine treaty, a senior administration official said in Washington. From now on, all new U.S. land mines will be detectable to U.S. authorities and geared to become inert. But those that are considered part of deterring attacks, such as in Korea, will be timed to self-destruct but will be able to be reset to remain operable, Lincoln Bloomfield, an assistant secretary of state who is President Bush’s special adviser on land mines said. (AP 270254 Feb 04)