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16 July 1998

PENTAGON SAYS AEGEAN PEACE, STABILITY A PRIORITY

(Cohen-Solana talks to include region) (400) 
By Susan Ellis
USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said Defense Secretary
Cohen and NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana would discuss a wide
range of issues July 16, probably including progress on
confidence-building measures in the Aegean.
On their agenda, he said, would be NATO expansion, "the accession of
new members (to NATO) in 1999 (during the) Washington summit, where
the expansion of NATO will take place; Bosnia, Kosovo...and probably
he (Cohen) will talk about the confidence-building measures in the
Aegean, particularly because the Turkish general (General Ismail
Karadayi, chairman of the Turkish Joint Chiefs of Staff) was here
earlier today and that will be on Secretary Cohen's mind.
"Those confidence-building measures are being shepherded through by
Javier Solana," he added. Solana also met with Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright in the morning before meeting with Cohen in the
afternoon.
In response to a reporter's question, Bacon said U.S. views on the
Cyprus situation are well-known, adding, "We had been talking with
Greece and Turkey about a number of possible ways to reduce tensions
on Cyprus and one of the proposals that the U.S. has made is a
voluntary moratorium on military air flights on that island. What
we're trying to do is get the parties to look at options for reducing
tensions. We're trying to encourage both the Greek side and the
Turkish side to step back from potential conflict, to step back
certainly from the current confrontation, and to look for more
peaceful, more stable solutions to their problems, and we have
proposed some options which are under discussion. One of them is this
idea of a voluntary moratorium."
Bacon noted that both Greece and Turkey have been participants in the
peacekeeping effort in the Balkans and that the two nations "are NATO
allies. We expect that they will operate and act as NATO allies who
step back from confrontation and look at the broader need for
stability in the alliance. I think both Greece and Turkey understand,
as do the other allies, that we need an alliance that's stable (in)
both the North and the South and the East and the West corners. And
that requires cooperation by all members."