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| Tuesday, 29 June 2004 |
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Afghanistan is top NATO priority: Blair LONDON, Monday (Reuters) British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday NATO's top priority was to help stabilise Afghanistan, but that the military alliance also had to expand its international role, notably to Iraq. "It is in all our interests to help Hamid Karzai, the president, to stabilise Afghanistan, counter threats from terrorism and drugs, and prepare for the first democratic elections," Blair wrote in an article in the Financial Times. NATO, which has a 6,500-strong peace force in the country, "must see the job through in Afghanistan", Blair said in the article, published as the military alliance's leaders gather in Istanbul for a two-day summit. Blair said NATO also needed to play a role in Iraq as the country adapted after the formal transfer of power from the U.S.-led administration on June 30. It must respond positively to requests from interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi for help in training Iraq's security forces, Blair wrote. "They (the Iraqi government) are not talking about NATO taking control of the multinational force, nor of a large-scale deployment of NATO assets. "But they do want to take advantage of NATO's expertise." The Istanbul summit is set to seal an agreement in principle on training the fledgling Iraqi security forces. But that is a far cry from Washington's initial hopes to have NATO deploy troops there. France and Germany, which opposed the U.S.-led Iraq war, shot down that idea. Blair said a radical overhaul of NATO's military capability initiated at a Prague summit in 2002 was delivering results and needed to be continued. "The rising demand for deployable military forces also means that it makes sense to build up European military capabilities equally available to NATO and the European Union," he wrote. Expanding on the theme of NATO broadening its remit, Blair said the alliance was looking at developing its initiative to offer security cooperation with Middle Eastern countries. Blair underlined the need for the group to move ahead after the differences over the Iraq war. "After the strains of last year, the transatlantic alliance is strong, and active, and looking to the future," he said. |
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