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NATO Agrees on Turkey's Defense |
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Source: Voice of America News; issued Feb. 17, 2003
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NATO members have broken a month-long deadlock and agreed to begin sending military hardware to help Turkey defend itself in case of war in Iraq.
Agreement was reached late Sunday when Belgium and Germany, which oppose any U.S.-led military action against Iraq, dropped their attempt to block aid to Turkey. Shipments of (AWACS) surveillance planes, air-defense missiles and chemical and biological warfare protection equipment are expected to begin immediately.
The U.S. ambassador to NATO, Nicholas Burns, says the decision to help Turkey deflect possible reprisal attacks by Iraq is a very big step forward," and NATO Secretary General George Robertson says "Alliance solidarity has prevailed."
However, France is still opposed to sending military equipment to Turkey, a move that Paris says puts NATO on the path toward war. France is not a member of the NATO Defense Planning Committee that decided to send aid to Turkey, so it was unable to block the action.
Europe's position on disarming Iraq is the focus of Monday's emergency European Union summit in Brussels. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan will address government leaders during the meeting, which was called (by Greece) in an attempt to come up with a unified policy on possible U.S.-led military action against Iraq.
Belgium's Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt says he hopes the NATO agreement will help leaders of the 15 European Union nations reach a common stand on Iraq. E.U. foreign policy chief Javier Solana says war may be necessary, but diplomatic efforts to resolve the Iraq crisis must first be exhausted.
Turkey is the only NATO member that borders Iraq and could be a target for Saddam Hussein if the United States decides to attack Iraq.
NATO's charter says an attack on one member is an attack against the entire alliance. The United States had argued that denying support for Turkey would damage NATO's credibility. (ends)
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