NATO Leaders Promote Values, Focus on Afghanistan
27 November 2006
Key U.S. senator tells conference dinner Afghanistan is "test case" for NATO
Riga, Latvia -- As NATO’s 26 heads of state prepare to gather for their first summit in a former Soviet republic, leaders stressed that the alliance is based on common values and remains committed to stabilizing Afghanistan and promoting a democratic way of life.
“Since its creation in 1949, NATO has defended key values" shared by its member states, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters November 27 in Riga.
When a journalist asked whether NATO leaders were aware of memorials in and around Riga commemorating tens of thousands of Holocaust victims murdered during World War II, de Hoop Scheffer said the military alliance was founded in part to prevent such atrocities in the future.
“I think quite honestly that the values that NATO has always defended -- and is defending as we speak … prevent these kinds of unspeakable atrocities from taking place again,” he said.
President Bush praised NATO as a values-based alliance when de Hoop Scheffer visited Washington in late October.
“You've made NATO a values-based organization that is capable of dealing with the true threats of the 21st century," Bush told the secretary-general during an October 27 White House visit. "The real challenge of the future is to help people of moderation and young democracies succeed in the face of threats and attacks by radicals and extremists who do not share our ideology, [and who] have kind of a dark vision of the world,” Bush said. (See related article.)
Bush arrived in neighboring Estonia late on November 27. He planned to arrive in Latvia on November 28 for overnight meetings with NATO heads of state to discuss Afghanistan and ways to transform the alliance to meet the global threats of the 21st century. (See related article.)
Bush also is scheduled to visit Amman, Jordan, after leaving Riga on November 29. (See related article.)
Latvia’s president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, met with reporters November 27 and said Afghanistan would be among the most important issues discussed when heads of state gather November 28 and 29. The talks, she said, would include issues related to NATO’s 32,000 troops in Afghanistan as well as “the nature of their intervention, our ability to work with the government of Afghanistan, and, of course, the ultimate aim … to get that country stabilized and able to govern itself.”
Alliance leaders also plan to discuss partnerships with non-NATO members that share NATO’s core values. “I don’t see how having people come to help you can weaken you,” Vike-Freiberga said. NATO seeks more formal cooperation with Australia, Finland, Japan, South Korea and Sweden – countries which all have deployed alongside NATO troops in recent missions.
The Riga Summit is the first meeting that includes the heads of state of all 26 member nations. Latvia was among the seven nations that joined the alliance in 2004. The next summit, scheduled for 2008, likely will emphasize partnerships and possible invitations for new members, Vike-Freiberga said. But, she said, the Riga Summit is a members-only meeting designed to concentrate on transformation and membership issues.
U.S. SENATOR SAYS AFGHANISTAN “TEST CASE” FOR NATO
U.S. Senator Richard Lugar, a Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivered the keynote address at a NATO dinner conference in Riga late November 27. Afghanistan, he said, is the “test case” of NATO’s ability to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
“If the most permanent alliance in modern history were to fail in its first operation outside of Europe due to a lack of will by its members, the efficacy of NATO and the ability to take joint action against a terrorist threat would be called into question,” Lugar said at the opulent Small Guild Building in Riga’s historic old city center.
“Moreover,” Lugar said, “Afghanistan has a legitimately elected government and a long-suffering people, both of which deserve a chance” to succeed. “It is imperative that NATO fulfill its commitments to Afghanistan,” Lugar said.
“Now the alliance has found it difficult to generate the political will to meet NATO objectives,” he said, citing troop shortages and restrictions – known as “caveats” -- placed by member states on how those troops can be used. “Afghanistan has become a test case on whether we can overcome the growing discrepancy between NATO’s expanding mission and its lagging capabilities,” Lugar said. “NATO commanders must have the resources to provide security; they must have the flexibility to use troops to meet Afghanistan’s most critical security needs.”
Increased violence during 2006 in Afghanistan “is clearly not evidence of a popular uprising,” Lugar said. Instead, he said, Taliban insurgents are “sowing dissent among Afghans” while “cooperating with the burgeoning narcotics trade and complicating security efforts in a way that inhibits the rule of law and reconstruction.”
NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), charged with helping to stabilize Afghanistan, remains understaffed by as much as 15 percent, a top U.S. general said November 21. “The amount of capabilities and forces that NATO has contributed at this point -- it's about 85 percent of the level of what was promised,” Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, the commander of U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, told Pentagon reporters. (See related article.)
See also The United States and NATO and "NATO Chief Says 15 Allies and Sweden Plan To Buy C-17s."
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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