Review of European Security Issues
16 December 2005
Rice addresses detainee concerns; European Union forces in Gaza; NATO in Afghanistan; South-Eastern Europe Brigade; Russia helps NATO fleet guarding Mediterranean; U.S.-Romania basing agreement; New administrator for Bosnia; Croatia war-crimes suspect arrested; Kosovo wrap-up
RICE ADDRESSES DETAINEE CONCERNS DURING EUROPEAN TRIP
During her four-country visit to Europe December 4-9, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice strongly defended U.S. conduct in worldwide anti-terror operations following news reports that the CIA has run secret interrogation centers.
Rice said that during the NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels, Belgium, she had serious discussions about the war on terrorism and detainee policy. The ministers talked about “what American policy really is, what it intends to do, how we intend to live up to our international obligation and U.S. law,” she said. (See related article.)
“We have to do everything that we can to protect our citizens in a lawful manner. But we have to use every tool at our disposal in a lawful manner to do precisely that,” she said.
In interviews with European media, Rice said that if Americans stray from their own laws and values while fighting terrorists, then the United States would be no better than its enemies “The War on Terror has to be fought lawfully,” she told German television December 6. (See related article.)
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Rice had “cleared the air” on the controversy.
EUROPEAN UNION FORCES MONITOR GAZA BORDER CROSSING
The European Union is deploying approximately 70 personnel to monitor the new “Philadelphia Road” border crossing between Egypt and the Palestinian Territories.
The crossing at Rafah formally was opened November 25, 10 days after Rice completed all-night negotiations with Israel and the Palestinian Authority. “The European Union … in taking on its first security responsibility in the region has given the Palestinian people a chance to start building their future state in reality, not just in rhetoric,” Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, said December 14. (For background on the Rafah border crossing, see related article.)
NATO ADDING 6,000 TROOPS TO ITS AFGHANISTAN FORCE
NATO foreign ministers on December 8 endorsed a plan that paves the way for an expanded NATO role in Afghanistan. The plan calls for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to begin operating in southern Afghanistan in 2006, covering an additional six provinces, and to establish at least four new Provincial Reconstruction Teams.
Currently, ISAF has about 9,000 troops providing security assistance in 50 percent of Afghanistan’s territory, with nine provincial reconstruction teams in the north and west of the country. As part of the expansion to the south, NATO will be deploying up to an additional 6,000 personnel to Afghanistan, potentially bringing the total number up to 15,000.
NATO Secretary-General Scheffer told reporters that NATO cannot work in a void, and that “other international actors should stay equally committed.” (See related article.)
SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE BRIGADE DEPLOYING TO AFGHANISTAN
Defense ministers from southeast European nations agreed December 6 to deploy their military forces early in 2006 to the international peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. The 10th annual Southeastern Europe Defense Ministerial (SEDM) took place December 5-6 in Washington.
During the meetings, Ukraine formally joined the regional alliance, bringing membership up to 11 nations: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine and the United States.
During the two-day talks, Ukraine agreed to provide aircraft to transport approximately 450 troops from the South-Eastern Europe Brigade (SEEBRIG) to Afghanistan early in 2006, where they will join the expanding NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. The seven-nation SEEBRIG is headquartered in Constanta, Romania. Its six-month Afghanistan mission is set to begin in February 2006. (See article.)
TWO RUSSIAN SHIPS TO JOIN NATO-LED FLEET IN MEDITERRANEAN
Two Russian navy vessels will join the NATO fleet in the Mediterranean as part of Operation Active Endeavour, said NATO’s secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop
Scheffer, in a December 8 news conference.
Operation Active Endeavor is the NATO mission to patrol Gibraltar and the Mediterranean to deter illegal shipping traffic following the terror attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001.
Describing other areas of cooperation between NATO and Russia, de Hoop Scheffer told reporters that “we will take our Theatre Missile Defense Project forward, and military activities will give more emphasis to key interoperability areas, including special forces, communications and military transport aviation.”
Background on Operation Active Endeavor is available on the Web site of NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Naples.
U.S.-ROMANIA BASING DEAL SIGNED; TALKS CONTINUE WITH BULGARIA
Secretary Rice, while visiting Romania December 6, signed an agreement allowing U.S. troops to use Romanian military facilities.
U.S. officials have stressed that perhaps only 100 troops would be stationed permanently in the region as part of a headquarters staff. Other U.S. troops, numbering in the hundreds or a few thousand at most, would take part in temporary deployments to the four facilities, which are Mihail-Kogalniceanu Air Base, Babadag, Cincu and Smardan.
“We’re not talking about permanent … bases in the sense of large populations of people and dependents and civil servants,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. The United States is still in negotiations over a similar basing proposal in neighboring Bulgaria.
Vesselin Bliznakov, the Bulgarian defense minister, told reporters during a visit to Washington that talks between Bulgaria and the United States “are progressing very satisfactorily.” Two rounds of these talks already have taken place, he said, adding, “we expect in March at the latest to conclude the formal side of the negotiations.” (See related article.)
BOSNIA ADMINISTRATOR NAMED ON ANNIVERSARY OF DAYON SIGNING
Former German Cabinet minister and diplomat Christian Schwarz-Schilling was nominated December 14 to replace Britain’s Paddy Ashdown as the head of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia. The announcement was made on the 10th anniversary of the formal signing of the Dayton Peace Accords. (See related article.)
Ashdown plans to step down in late January 2006. Speaking December 15 in Vienna, Austria, he said it is time for the OHR to “progressively withdraw” from actively running the country and to assume a monitoring role. (See related article.)
BALKANS WAR-CRIMES SUSPECT ARRESTED IN CANARY ISLANDS
Ante Gotovina, a wartime army commander in Croatia, was arrested December 7 in Spain’s Canary Islands and transported to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, Netherlands. He is accused of committing crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war in connection with Croatia’s military campaign against Serbs in the Krajina region in the summer and early autumn of 1995. (See ICTY indictment.)
“With the success of its considerable efforts to locate and bring Gotovina to justice, Croatia significantly strengthens its candidacy for its eventual full Euro-Atlantic integration,” said Secretary Rice. (See related article.)
State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said other Balkans war-crimes cases still need to be resolved. “We would use this occasion to reiterate the point that the government of Serbia and Montenegro and … the Bosnian and Serb authorities need to take every action to fulfill their international obligations … particularly by apprehending and transferring to The Hague Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic,” Ereli said December 8.
KOSOVO WRAP-UP: EU POLICE FORCE, BUS ATTACK
European Union (EU) security chief Javier Solana and enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn have proposed that the EU eventually take over Kosovo's policing from the United Nations and set up a police mission similar to the one the EU runs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Southeast European Times reported December 11. (See report.)
Meanwhile, U.N. police have tightened security around Kosovo following a rocket attack on a bus near Prizren on December 3. Unknown assailants fired a rocket on a coach carrying ethnic Albanians, a Serb, and members of several other ethnic communities, but the projectile failed to explode. International authorities blamed the attack on those who oppose the process to determine Kosovo's final status. NATO has been bolstering its own peacekeeping forces to enforce stability before the talks begin. The talks could lead to the province’s independence from Serbia and Montenegro. (See related article.)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
