The Hindu : Germany, France, Belgium block NATO move to protect Turkey

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 11, 2003

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Germany, France, Belgium block NATO move to protect Turkey

BERLIN Feb. 10. Germany joined France and Belgium today in blocking the start of NATO military planning to protect Turkey against the threat of an Iraqi missile attack. ``We are joining Belgium and France,'' the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Walter Lindner, said.

The announcement came after France and Belgium blocked the move at the NATO alliance in Brussels, Belgium. Turkey requested emergency NATO consultations today after the decision of the three countries.

NATO officials said France formally blocked the move an hour before the organisation's procedures would have automatically started the military planning at 0900 GMT.

It was believed to be the first time in the 53-year history of the NATO that a nation formally invoked Article 4 of the founding Mutual Defence Treaty, and it was another indication of deepening divisions in the alliance over the Iraq crisis.

Diplomats said France, Germany and Belgium would do serious harm to the credibility of the NATO if they rejected Turkey's direct request for help. Article 4 says that the NATO members will consult when "in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened".

The three countries argued that protecting Turkey would force the crisis into a "logic of war" when some peaceful diplomatic alternatives still stood a chance of success.

The move was a blow to the U.S. which has lobbied hard for more than three weeks for the alliance to start the military planning, backed by 16 of the 19 allies. Meanwhile, at a weekend defence conference in Munich, the German Defence Minister, Peter Struck, still hinted that Germany might bewilling to lift its objections.

He denied reports that Franco-German proposals to disarm Iraq without war included a role for thousands of U.N. peacekeepers, injecting new confusion into efforts to head off U.S. pressure for war. "The plans are not far enough along that one could present them with great specific details," he said in a German radio interview.

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