Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

15 June 2004

NATO

• Ukrainian President Kuchma acknowledged Monday that this former Soviet republic is not ready to join NATO despite good relations with the Western alliance. “We are still not ready to say ‘Yes’ to membership,” President Kuchma told reporters, according to Ukrainian media reports. Ukraine is “equally far from NATO as from the EU,” he said during a one-day visit to the southern city of Melitopol. (AP 141344 Jun 04)

IRAQ

• British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that he expected any further NATO role in Iraq to be limited to training security forces, rejecting talk of a split between the United States and Europe over NATO involvement. “I don’t believe we will see further troops come through NATO,” he told parliament in London. “But I hope, and if the new Iraq government wishes it, we will see assistance with training provided for the Iraqi security forces.” (Reuters 141727 GMT Jun 04)

AFGHANISTAN

• Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he hopes NATO will send more peacekeeping troops before September when his country is scheduled to hold its first free election. “To fulfil the promise that we have been made, we are hoping that NATO will come to Afghanistan before the elections of September,” he said on Monday at a joint news conference with Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in Washington. (AP 150006 Jun 04)

ESDP

• EU foreign ministers on Monday approved spending US $2.4 million to kick-start a European Defence Agency designed to identify shortcomings in Europe’s defence capabilities and oversee cooperation in arms research and development. Officials said the money for 2004 is mainly for building up an initial staff of 25 to be in place by year’s end. This will rise to about 80 in 2005 when the agency’s general budget is estimated to reach US $30 million. (AP 142133 Jun 04)

BALKANS

• Ukraine’s President Leonid Kuchma asked defence and security officials to reconsider the future presence of Ukrainian peacekeepers in Kosovo. He sent the request to Ukraine’s government, the country’s National Security Council and the Defence Ministry in Kiev. The move came after the U.S. Department of Defence informed Ukraine that it will no longer provide financial support to the Ukrainian battalion serving with the NATO peacekeeping contingent in Kosovo, a presidential statement said. No further details were provided. (AP 141534 Jun 04)

OTHER NEWS

• The United States would face an increasingly lethal Chinese army modernized by Washington’s friends and allies if it had to defend Taiwan in a war with Beijing, said a U.S. study released on Tuesday in Washington. Russia’s arms exports to China are more sophisticated than ever, and Israel - recipient of some of America’s most advanced technology - has an increasingly worrisome defence relationship with Beijing, the report said. Moreover, if the European Union lifts its arms embargo on China as some members want, that could “dramatically enhance China’s military capability,” added the report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. (Reuters 150401 GMT Jun 04)