Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

12 May 2004

MEDITERRANEAN DIALOGUE

• According to Algerian television ENTV, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Abdelaziz Belkhadem held talks yesterday with NATO Deputy Secretary General Alessandro Minuto Rizzo, who arrived in Algeria within the framework of a working and consultation visit to deepen the Mediterranean Dialogue between NATO and Algeria. Mr. Minuto Rizzo was quoted saying: “I am here to discuss with his excellency the Minister the Atlantic-Mediterranean Dialogue, which is 10 years old now. We want to develop this dialogue into a much stronger partnership between the Mediterranean countries and to develop cooperation in the spheres of defense, combating terrorism and security in general.” Mr. Belkhadem was reported saying: “Algeria has begun this dialogue. It wants to move from dialogue to partnership and to change the quality of the normal programs which take place between the countries of the Mediterranean and NATO to designed programs which respond to Algeria’s needs and lead to mutual benefits between Algeria and NATO.”

IRAQ

• AP reports Danish Foreign Minister Moeller saying Denmark, a key U.S. ally in Iraq, will keep its nearly 500 soldiers in southern Iraq for another six months. The decision, adds the dispatch, came after Mr. Moeller held talks with members of four opposition parties on Monday and won their support. A formal vote by lawmakers in the parliament is expected June 2. Denmark has 496 troops in Basra and nearby Qurnah, 400 kilometers southeast of Baghdad. “It is important that there is an international presence at the time when the power is being handed over to a temporary government,” former Foreign Minister Helveg Petersen is quoted saying.

BALKANS

• Despite the 2010 Security Council deadline, Judge Theodor Meron, president of the UN war crimes court, warned that the tribunal cannot close before fugitive Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are brought to justice, an AFP dispatch reports. “I warned the Security Council that the completion strategy cannot produce any kind of impunity for those most seriously responsible,” Judge Meron allegedly told the agency in an exclusive interview. Under the so called completion strategy for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) trials should end by 2008 and all appeals should be done by 2010, some twenty years after the start of the 1990’s wars that tore apart the Balkans, explains the report. “It would be unacceptable that we just allow people like Karadzic, Mladic and (Croatian general Ante) Gotovina to sit us out, to hide knowing that one day we will go out of business,” the judge also reportedly said. Furthermore, if the 2010 deadline arrives without any of those three in custody, Mr. Meron said he will try to persuade the Security Council to let the UN court continue. In March, adds the report, the Security Council adopted a resolution calling on the tribunal “in reviewing and confirming any new indictments, to ensure that any such indictments concentrate on the most senior leaders.” The dispatch notes, in conclusion, that in April the judges introduced a change in the rules stating that from now on judges reviewing indictments from the prosecutor could only confirm them if the suspect indicted was one of the most senior leaders.