NATO Faces Challenges in Mideast, Darfur, Black Sea and Elsewhere
24 February 2006
State's Volker says NATO can "deliver solutions" to trouble spots worldwide
By Vince Crawley
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- NATO is important politically and militarily because it can deliver solutions to some of the globe’s most challenging problems, a senior State Department official says.
The 26-nation alliance was involved in eight simultaneous operations in 2005 and is looking at a range of possible new missions and partnerships, said Kurt Volker, the second in command at the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, during a speech February 23 in Washington.
NATO currently has partnership relationships with 30 countries in Eurasia and another 22 countries in the broader Middle East, and it is looking at other relationships, he said. (See related article.)
The alliance “is politically important for our leaders because it can deliver solutions,” Volker said. “It can deliver assets on the ground. It can bring capabilities to bear to deal with the problem. … That’s what leaders look for.”
He also described NATO’s ongoing transformation, noting that the NATO of the Cold War “was focused on protecting the territory of its members,” but now it is operating “in Afghanistan, in Pakistan – we just closed that operation - in Iraq, in Darfur.”
“Operating a much greater geographic distance. I think this is a trend that’s only going to continue,” he said.
Volker was referring to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan; the delivery of humanitarian relief supplies following the earthquake in Pakistan; the training of Iraqi military forces inside and outside of Iraq; and logistical support to the African Union’s peacekeeping effort in the Darfur region of Sudan.
He said Russia has agreed to join Operation Active Endeavor, NATO’s naval counterterrorism efforts in the Mediterranean, and countries from North Africa have been invited to participate. NATO would be interested in expanding the successful Mediterranean ship patrols into the Black Sea, he said, “but countries that border the Black Sea have different views on this, from more enthusiastic to less enthusiastic.”
“We don’t want to sort of be pushing NATO in against the wishes of any NATO allies, particularly Turkey, so we are talking to countries about how and whether we can do this,” Volker said.
In other initiatives, officers from countries in the greater Middle East and North Africa have been invited to attend NATO schools “and we’d like to continue to do more of this,” Volker said.
“We’re thinking, for example, that NATO could work with a country in the region to produce a training center in the region,” he said. Such a center could train local forces on “anything from special police to leadership training to logistic.”
Asked about alliance membership for Israel – which has been discussed recently in the media – Volker said it would likely be too controversial without first solving the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
“This is not an issue on the table in NATO,” he said. The U.S. government hasn’t taken a position on this “and I don’t see a reason why we should.”
Regarding the Palestinian Territories, Volker said, NATO in 2005 was starting to discuss a possible mission to help train Palestinian security forces but the idea is “off the table” for now. A training mission might be possible “if we had a Palestinian Authority that rejected violence and recognized Israel’s right to exist,” he added.
He said the African Union is seeking additional assistance with its Darfur mission, possibly by requesting the United Nations to assume a leading role in expanding the peacekeeping operation. But Volker stressed that the African Union would maintain a leading role in the decision process and that the United States and NATO would be ready to assist. (See related article.)
NATO also is interested in developing formal working relationships with countries such as Japan and South Korea, democracies with which the alliance expects to cooperate with on global missions, Volker said. Partnership with Asian and Pacific countries might be discussed at the NATO summit this November, he said. (See related article.)
The full text of Volkers remarks, plus a question-and-answer session, is available on the State Department Web site.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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