Nato meets to debate military aid for Turkey

Nato allies debated a Belgian proposal today to end a dispute over military aid for Turkey ahead of a possible war against Iraq.

Ahead of today’s meeting, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said his country, France and Germany may lift their veto to early assistance for Turkey if Nato makes clear the aid is strictly defensive and does not make the alliance party to war preparations against Iraq.

To help make that possible, Nato tried a diplomatic trick: it put the issue today to the Defence Planning Committee, which excludes France. Paris left Nato’s military command structure in the late 1960s and participates only in political, not military consultations.

The committee, which usually meets only twice a year, was used ahead of the 1991 war against Iraq to approve aid for Turkey, and officials using it again might make it possible for Germany and Belgium to fall in line with the other allies.

Germany, France and Belgium have objected to allied military aid, which would include early warning aircraft, missile defences and anti-biochemical units, arguing that starting planning now would hamper the search for a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis.

Their objections to American suggestions of assistance to Turkey – first put to the allies on January 15 – have driven a deep wedge between the United States and its allies.

Aid to Turkey “creates the impression (Nato is) preparing for war. Changes are needed to make clear these are defensive measures (and) no first step in a war against Iraq,” Verhofstadt said yesterday.

Nato must “make it explicitly clear that (aid for Turkey) does not imply participation of Nato in a military operation against Iraq,” he said.

As the Nato session began, there was little immediate optimism that a deal was imminent. One diplomat, who asked not to be named, said, “We have been saying for weeks the assistance we’re planning for is defensive. How many times do we have to say it?”

Another said the 16 allies backing the planning would not accept a “hollow shell” of a statement from Nato’s policy setting North Atlantic Council “which purports to show solidarity with Turkey, but is in fact totally empty.”

The meeting came after two days of behind-the-scenes diplomatic activities in European capitals to de-escalate the crisis at Nato.

The US and its allies say denying support for Turkey’s defence erodes the alliance’s credibility and sends the wrong signal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Washington has termed the three countries’ veto incompatible with the central tenet of Nato solidarity: an attack on one is an attack on all.