Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

7 April 2004

NATO - RUSSIA

• NATO welcomed Russia’s plan to sign an armed forces cooperation pact with its Cold War enemy as “good news.” “For military contacts, it is very helpful...and politically it tells you that relations with NATO are not too bad,” said an official of the U.S.-led alliance in Brussels, whose secretary-general, Mr. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, starts a visit to Moscow on Thursday evening. (Reuters 061720 GMT Apr 04)

BALKANS

• The European Union backed down on Tuesday in a tussle with NATO over Bosnia, accepting that the U.S-led alliance would be responsible for tracking down indicted war criminals even after the EU takes over its peace mission. France, which wanted NATO’s presence in Bosnia to be as light as possible once its mission ends around the end of this year, expressed regret but said it would not make a “casus belli” of the issue. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said: “The United States will maintain… NATO will maintain, something in the hundreds, not more than that.” A NATO force of 200-300 soldiers would help Bosnia with defence reforms to ease it into the alliance’s Partnership for Peace and also track down suspected war criminals, he told a news conference after a meeting of EU defence ministers. (Reuters 061737 GMT Apr 04)
  
  
• NATO regrets the innocent victims of a recent effort to capture Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, but the alliance insisted Tuesday that force was necessary because the war crimes suspect is surrounded by armed criminals. But in Belgrade, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pavle, accused the NATO troops of beatings. “They were beaten,” he said in a statement carried by the independent Beta news agency. Patriarch Pavle also said that the Serbian Orthodox Church is not providing protection for war crimes suspects. NATO-led peacekeepers in Bosnia have vehemently denied that the men were beaten at any time. In a related development, Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor of the tribunal in The Hague, arrived Tuesday in Sarajevo and met with the commander of the NATO-led peacekeepers, U.S. Maj. Gen. Virgil Packet II, but no statements were made. (AP 061844 Apr 04)

IRAQ

• The United Nations must have responsibility for all operations in Iraq before a wider NATO role in stabilising the country can be considered, French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said on Tuesday. “Before considering anything at all, the United Nations must have responsibility for all operations. There must be a legitimate Iraqi government - we want this to come as quickly as possible - and there must be a request from this government,” she told a news conference in Brussels. (Reuters 061502 GMT Apr 04)
  
  
• If violence in Iraq gets worse, U.S. military commanders will get the troops they need to deal with it, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday. Commanders are studying ways they might increase troops in Iraq if violence should spread much more widely, defense officials said. Officials said they also are talking to six more countries about the possibility of contributing forces. (AP 062113 Apr 04)

AFGHANISTAN

• Afghanistan’s elections in September will be threatened unless the security situation improves and significant progress is made in disarming factional armed forces, a senior UN official warned. Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno said “it is now absolutely vital” that the Afghan government meet its commitment to intensify the disarmament and reintegration of former combatants by demobilizing 40 percent of current militias and locking up all heavy weapons by June. He stressed that increased international security assistance is essential to support the election process “and protect it both from factional threats or more radical attempts to oppose the process.” Mr. Guehenno called for additional international forces, saying “the vast majority of Afghans remain convinced that above all, elections require prior disarmament.” The council also acknowledged NATO’s plans to expand the alliance’s peacekeeping mission beyond Kabul. U.S. deputy ambassador James Cunningham told the council that the United States has established nine of the 12 provincial military teams currently operating in Afghanistan. He called for additional teams, saying they are “increasingly popular, not only with the leadership of the transitional administration, but also with the Afghan citizens.” (AP 070007 Apr 04)

ICC

• President Bush announced agreements with another two countries to exempt Americans from prosecution by the International Criminal Court. The latest, according to a statement released by the White House on Tuesday, are the Central African Republic and Guinea. (AP 070116 Apr 04)