Bucharest (Romania): NATO SUMMIT UPDATE (I) – Mar 17, 2008

Mar 17, 2008 (Romania Report & sources)

Canada expects offer of 1,000 extra troops at Apr. 2-4 NATO summit at the latest… Traian Basescu: Romania to Support Granting of IDA Program to Georgia… Poland supports Ukraine's NATO, EU bid… Georgia, Ukraine's NATO hopes remain in the balance: Scheffer…

Canada expects offer of 1,000 extra troops at Apr. 2-4 NATO summit at the latest

BRUSSELS, Belgium: Canada expects its NATO allies will soon offer 1,000 more soldiers to support the Canadian contingent in Afghanistan, the foreign minister said Sunday.

The Canadian parliament agreed last week to extend Canada's 2,500-troop mission in Kandahar province to 2011, provided NATO sends more troops and equipment to back them up in the former Taliban stronghold.

Canada's Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said the pledge — preferably from "one single nation" to keep things simple — would likely be made before or during NATO's summit on April 2-4 in Bucharest, Romania.

In addition to at least 1,000 extra troops, Canada is looking for equipment including helicopters and unmanned surveillance aircraft.

"Those 1,000 extra troops — that is really a minimum," MacKay told a weekend conference of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, where trans-Atlantic security issues were debated.



Traian Basescu: Romania to Support Granting of IDA Program to Georgia

Romania will support Georgia’s inclusion in the International Development Association (IDA) program to in order to enter NATO – Romania’s President Traian Basescu said in his meeting with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili (at the forum of European People’s Party of in Brussels), ‘Trend’ news agency reports.

“The support for joining NATO means that the efforts of the Georgian people (who are striving for entering the Alinace) will be highly appreciated,” the Romanian President said. He stated that Georgia has undertaken significant progress in trying to meet the NATO standards.

Mr. Basescu stressed that Georgia should mobilize those who support its entry to NATO until the Bucharest summit. The two Presidents discussed the bilateral relationships and Bucharest’s support for European and NATO integration.

David Bakradze, the foreign minister of Georgia said in his interview with the journalists that Mikhail Saakashvili, the Georgian President attempted to gain the support for IDA program by holding informal meetings with head of states during the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday (13-14 March).

Poland supports Ukraine's NATO, EU bid

WARSAW, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Polish President Lech Kaczynski declared on Friday that Poland supported the inclusion of Ukraine in the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP).

"Within the coming two weeks before the NATO summit in Bucharest (on April 2-4), we will undertake concrete actions in this respect," Kaczynski told a joint press conference after his talks with visiting Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko.

Kaczynski said he would "take appropriate measures" in favor of Ukraine's European prospects.

"It is important that Poland -- already a NATO and EU member --can forge ahead on the path Ukraine wants to take," Yushchenko said.

Yushchenko said Poland had "an extraordinary mission" in supporting efforts to include Ukraine in the MAP. He also declared that joining NATO was Ukraine's sovereign decision and would be preceded by a national referendum.

The two presidents also covered such topics as the Odessa-Brody-Gdansk oil pipeline and the energy summit in Kiev. Kaczynski said after the meeting that "things stand very well in this respect."



Georgia, Ukraine's NATO hopes remain in the balance: Scheffer

BRUSSELS (AFP) - NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Saturday that Georgia and Ukraine's membership aspirations still remain in the balance less than three weeks before the alliance's summit – AFP reported on Sat Mar 15.

The two former Soviet states hope to win invitations to join NATO's so-called membership action plan (MAP), which helps aspiring countries prepare for future entry, when leaders meet in Bucharest from April 2-4.

Scheffer said he hoped that the two "will see results of Bucharest as an inspiration for them to proceed on their Euro-Atlantic track. In what form that will exactly be, it is honestly quite early to tell," he said.

"Thirteen or 14 working days are a long time in politics," he noted, at the Brussels Forum conference in the Belgian capital. "I hope that the few working days left will provide a more clear answer."

NATO's 26 member nations are unable to agree on the candidacies of Georgia and Ukraine, with Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain known to be sceptical about speeding up membership proceedings.

Ukraine's leaders support rapprochement with NATO and have applied for MAP status but there is little public support for the move.

The Georgian public is largely in favour, but NATO nations were disturbed by the state of emergency it imposed in December to end opposition protests, as well as the frozen conflicts with breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Beyond the compromised candidacies, Russia has reacted angrily to their NATO ambitions, and the alliance is reluctant to fuel already tense ties with Moscow with president-elect Dmitry Medvedev soon to take office.

But Scheffer underlined that NATO must keep its door open to eastern European countries, and insisted that Russia could have no veto over who the world's biggest military alliance lets in.

"As long as some countries feel that they are not entirely masters of their own future, not least because others try to deny them that free choice, Europe is not the common space that I want it to be," he said.



Romania Report & sources