Nato ministers wrestle with Darfur crisis
Nato foreign ministers today considered proposals for strengthening support for African peacekeepers struggling to contain political and ethnic violence in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Officials cautioned that any major upgrade of assistance would depend on more talks with the African Union and the United Nations.
The West’s nuclear stand-off with Iran and the alliance’s expanding mission in Afghanistan also loomed large on the second and last day of the Nato foreign ministers’ meeting in the Bulgarian capital Sofia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will join the Nato talks under mounting Western pressure to accept a tough stance against Iran if, as expected, Tehran fails to meet today’s UN deadline for bringing its nuclear programme into line with international demands.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the meeting yesterday said the credibility of the United Nations Security Council would depend on it taking action against Iran. But Russia and China – which have veto power in the council - are resisting calls by the US, France and Britain for moves that could lead to sanctions on the Islamic republic if it fails to comply.
Diplomats said there was wide support for Rice’s tough line among the allies at a closed ministerial dinner last night, although no decisions on possible sanctions were taken. European diplomats said Rice reassured allies that the US was seeking a diplomatic, rather than a military solution to the problem.
Rice also briefed the dinner on her visit to Iraq this week and diplomats said there was broad support for the incoming government under Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki. The wide-ranging talks also discussed the Palestinian situation, with France and Spain stressing that the West had to find ways to support the Palestinian economy despite the freeze in direct assistance to the Hamas-led government.
Ministers stressed their determination to push through plans to expand their peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan into the country’s more dangerous southern and eastern regions despite an increase in deadly attacks on foreign troops.
Nato spokesman James Appathurai said ministers backed the use of “robust” force by their troops to deter further attacks. The Nato force is due to expand from 9,000 to 17,000 by July and up to 21000 by the end of the year.
On Darfur, Washington is urging greater Nato backing for African Union peacekeepers with logistics, communications, transport, planning, intelligence and expanded training – including up to several hundred instructors and other experts on the ground in Sudan.
So far, Nato support has been limited to airlifts and a small training mission for AU commanders. Nato officials said any wider involvement would depend on requests coming from the AU or the United Nations, which is expected to take over the peacekeeping mission in September.
They stressed that Nato combat troops would not be involved on the ground in Darfur, where the 6,000-strong AU force has failed to halt political and ethnic violence that has killed over 180,000 people and driven more than 3 million from their homes.
Nato has offered to do more, but several allies fear sending significant numbers of Europeans and North Americans could inflame regional sensitivities - particularly if the mainly Muslim Sudanese government opposes a Nato deployment.
Osama bin Laden accused the United States, in a tape aired on Sunday, of igniting strife in Darfur “to pave the way for sending Crusader forces to occupy the region and steal its oil under the pretext of peacekeeping.”
Lavrov is expected to raise concerns of his own over Nato preparations to move toward a possible offer of membership to the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia. The Russian Foreign Ministry on yesterday warned such an expansion - although not expected until 2008 at the earliest – would force Moscow to reorganise its armed forces in response.
Russia is also reportedly uneasy about Nato moves to build closer relations with Pacific nations – Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Russia’s Nobel laureate and former Soviet dissident writer Aleksander Solzhenitsyn waded into the debate Thursday accusing Nato of seeking to encircle Russia.
“Though it is clear that present-day Russia poses no threat to it, Nato is methodically and persistently building up its military machine – into the east of Europe and surrounding Russia from the south,” Solzhenitsyn was quoted as telling the weekly Moscow News.
