NATO summit to focus on Afghanistan 

On his first major foreign trip since taking office on January 20, he called yesterday's accord at the G20 summit in London a "turning point" for the world economy. 

He will be hoping for a similar breakthrough on the worsening crisis in Afghanistan, and will look to other NATO leaders for support at the military alliance's two-day summit being held on both the French and German sides of the Rhine. 

His new Afghan strategy was unveiled last week, and aims to try to get a grip on rising violence by Taliban militants driven from power in 2001 but never completely defeated. 

It broadens the focus to include Pakistan and puts the highest priority on the defeat of al Qaeda militants, who Obama says are plotting new attacks on the United States. 

Having already announced plans to add 17,000 more US combat troops to the 38,000 already there, Obama said he would send 4,000 more to help train the Afghan army and add civilian personnel to tackle problems such as the booming narcotics trade and government corruption. 

He has stressed the need for international cooperation to turn the tide, with insurgent violence reaching its highest level since US-led forces toppled the Taliban in 2001. 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai also said this week he needed regional cooperation to tackle terrorism. 

The NATO mission has been criticised for disorganisation, but European leaders have been reluctant to commit more forces to an increasingly unpopular war among voters. 

Obama arrives in France in mid-morning and will hold bilateral talks with President Nicolas Sarkozy and take part in a US-style "town hall" meeting, before hopping across the border for discussions with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. 

The NATO summit starts in the evening with a dinner. 

Anti-NATO demonstrators have vowed to disrupt the summit and riot police clashed with hundreds of protesters on Thursday in Strasbourg in France, repeatedly firing tear gas and rubber bullets and arresting around 200 youths. 

Symbolic celebration 

Obama has said that countries that felt unable to commit more military forces to Afghanistan should at least boost help for the civilian effort. 

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has called on non-US allies to send up to 4,000 more troops to safeguard August elections. He also wants them to make up a long-standing shortfall in training teams for the Afghan army and commit to a revamped police training mission under NATO command. 

The summit marks NATO's 60th anniversary and its venue, straddling the frontier of foes-turned-allies France and Germany, will be packed with symbolism aimed at celebrating an alliance originally created to defend Europe's borders. 

Enlargement to slow 

Leaders will welcome France's return to full NATO participation after a Franco-US schism dating to the days of Charles de Gaulle and usher in new members Albania and Croatia. 

But NATO's steady post-Cold War enlargement to the east will take a pause after the admission of Albania and Croatia at a summit on Friday, while the alliance refocuses on warming its ties with Russia, diplomats said. 

The soon-to-be 28-nation military pact firmly rejects any idea that Moscow has influence on who becomes a member. But NATO capitals have long acknowledged as a factor the Russian belief that enlargement is an unfriendly encroachment on its space. 

Moreover the unreadiness of would-be members Macedonia, Ukraine and Georgia, and the more pragmatic approach of President Obama on the issue, means NATO expansion is squarely on the back burner for now. 

The Balkans duo could have been joined by Macedonia, but its hopes of accession were dashed last year when Greece vetoed its bid over a continuing 17-year dispute over its name, which is also that of Greece's northernmost province (EurActiv 04/04/08). 

"This is not an enlargement summit," said one alliance diplomat, playing down prospects of any serious talk among NATO leaders this week on the status of aspiring members. 

Leaders will look at ways too to rebuild ties with Russia, whose help it sees as vital in a host of global security issues. 

In search of new secretary-general 

De Hoop Scheffer is due to stand down in July and NATO had wanted to name his successor at the summit, but concerns over its image in the Muslim world and elsewhere are hampering the quest for the right candidate. 

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is the front runner, but NATO member Turkey is unhappy with his handling of a 2006 row over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, which caused riots in the Muslim world. 

(EurActiv with Reuters.)

As NATO celebrates its 60th anniversary, 11 international aid agencies including Oxfam, ActionAid, CARE Afghanistan and Save the Children UK released a new report, called “Caught in the Conflict”, which says NATO and other international military forces must transform the way their soldiers operate in Afghanistan. 

”In 2008 there were 2,100 civilian casualties, a 30% increase on the previous year. Although 55% of civilian deaths were caused by militants, there are serious concerns about fatalities caused by air strikes from pro-government forces, which increased by 70% to 552,” the report states. 

Matt Waldman, head of policy for Oxfam International on Afghanistan, said: “The troop surge will fail to achieve greater overall security and stability unless the military prioritise the protection of Afghan civilians. 

The aid agencies are asking for NATO and other military forces in Afghanistan to do far more to reduce civilian casualties, for example by tightening the rules on air strikes, ensuring night raids do not involve excessive force, and subjecting Special Forces operations to rigorous oversight. 

The European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) group in the European Parliament  calls for an immediate end to the war in Afghanistan and to the NATO military alliance. 

The GUE/NGL supports the protests against the NATO summit in Strasbourg, where it is taking part in the broad organizing and mobilizing coalition. 

Francis Wurtz, President of the GUE/NGL group, and German GUE/NGL MEPs Gabi Zimmer and Tobias Pflüger will be attending the events being organised by the group and participating in demonstrations, the political group announced. 

The biggest unresolved challenge facing the NATO countries’ leaders when they meet on the Rhine this week is how to manage the organization’s relationship with Russia, Gareth Evans and Alain Délétroz from the International Crisis Group write in an article, titled “NATO and Russia: In need for a bold step”. 

“Nobody wants to relive the Cold War, but habits of mind from that era persist on both sides, continuing to influence behaviour and inhibiting the clean break from the past that would be in everyone’s interest,” the authors write. 

They argue that Moscow feels that the organisation’s expansion, deep into the former socialist camp and the former USSR itself, was a brutally insensitive and confrontational response to the quick and generous Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Germany and Central Europe. 

To overcome the negative trends, Gareth Evans and Alain Délétroz advocate opening the NATO doors to Russia. 

A chaotic world demands bold leaders capable of taking bold historical steps. Two decades ago, Ronald Reagan made a vibrant call in Berlin to Mikhail Gorbachev to put his words into deeds by tearing down the Berlin wall, and he answered by doing exactly that. 

“Opening the door for NATO membership now to Medvedev’s Russia is another step that would have profoundly positive implications for the future stability of Europe and the wider world.” 

British conservative MEP Geoffrey Van Orden, who is also Conservative Defence spokesman, warned that France would use the NATO summit to promote its EU military ambitions, at the expense of the Transatlantic framework. 

“There is a real danger that this summit will be used by France to promote the EU’s military ambitions, in particular a separate EU Operational HQ,” Van Orden states in a press release. He goes further: 

“In fact, France’s welcome return to the integrated military structure of NATO should render the EU’s separate defence policy redundant. Separate structures bring only waste and confusion. […] At a time of economic stringency and military overstretch, when Britain and other European nations have been cutting their armed forces and are barely able to meet operational requirements, we cannot afford such waste.” 

"I can think of no better present for Nato on its Diamond Jubilee than to be confirmed as the security organisation of first resort for the Western democracies," Van Orden concludes.