Missile threat today comes from Iran: Sarkozy

LISBON (Agencies)

NATO to hand security to Afghan forces by end of 2014

NATO said on Saturday it would hand over security in Afghanistan to Afghan forces by the end of
2014 but the head of the alliance said it would not abandon the country in its fight against the Taliban. Opening the summit attended by the 48 countries fighting in Afghanistan and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance would start handing over authority to Afghan forces next year and hoped to complete the process by the end of 2014. “The direction starting today is clear towards Afghan leadership and Afghan ownership,” Rasmussen said as he opened the gathering.

	The direction starting today is clear towards Afghan leadership and Afghan ownership
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen

“That is the vision President Karzai has set out. It is a vision we share and we will make a reality starting early next year,” the Alliance chief said.

“But let there be no doubt of our continuing commitment,” Rasmussen added. “Afghanistan’s fight against terrorism is of strategic global importance. Success matters as much to us as it does to the Afghan people.”

Karzai, who has an increasingly fractious relationship with the United States and with the U.S.-NATO commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, has set 2014 as the date he wants Afghan forces to have full responsibility for security.

President Barack Obama, who has sent 30,000 more U.S. troops to the war in the past year to try to quell the Taliban-led insurgency, intends to start withdrawing some forces from July 2011 and backs the aim of an end to combat within four years.

He also supports efforts at reconciliation with the Taliban.

Rasmussen said the new strategy did not mean all 150,000 foreign troops now deployed in Afghanistan would leave the country by the 2014 deadline.

NATO agrees on a new anti-missle defense

Obama and his NATO allies agreed Friday to set up a new anti-missile defense shield across Europe and to invite Russia to take part.

The deal means NATO leaders will set up a network of radars and interceptors forming an anti-ballistic missile shield extending over Europe and possibly linking with Russia too.

“I’m pleased to announce that for the first time, we have agreed to develop a missile defense capability that’s strong enough to cover all NATO European territory and populations, as well as the United States,” Obama said after a first session of the two-day NATO summit in Lisbon.

	France calls a cat a cat: the threat of the missiles today is Iran
French President Nicolas Sarkozy

Historic NATO-Russia relation

Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev confirmed Saturday that he had agreed to work with Moscow’s former Western foe NATO to plan a European missile defence shield

NATO planned Saturday to deliver a historic invitation for Russia to join a missile shield protecting Europe against Iranian attack, a milestone for an alliance that was built to defend against Soviet forces.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Saturday that NATO met his nation’s demands and that the agreement “was within the framework of what we wished. We are pleased about this.”

And France, which had had reservations that the missile shield plan might come across as a substitute from nuclear deterrence, said it too had signed on after its concerns were answered.

“France would have refused a unilateral project disconnected from reality, or costly — or if it had been for that matter hostile to Russia or had been a substitute for nuclear deterrence,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said.

He noted that no country was specifically mentioned as the object of the missile defense, but added: “France calls a cat a cat: the threat of the missiles today is Iran.”

Under the arrangement, a limited system of U.S. anti-missile interceptors and radars already planned for Europe — to include interceptors in Romania and Poland and possibly radar in Turkey — would be linked to expanded European-owned missile defenses. That would create a broad system that protects every NATO country against medium-range missile attack.

The allies opened their summit by agreeing on the first rewrite of NATO’s basic mission — formally called its “strategic concept” — since 1999. They reaffirmed their bedrock commitment that an attack on one would be treated as an attack on all. In that context, the agreement to build a missile defense for all of Europe is meant to strengthen the alliance.

What remains in conflict, however, is the question of the future role of nuclear weapons in NATO’s basic strategy. The document members agreed to on Friday says NATO will retain an “appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional capabilities” to deter a potential aggressor. Germany and some other NATO members want U.S. nuclear weapons withdrawn from Europe.

On the topic of a U.S.-Russia arms treaty, Obama was backed by NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who told reporters that the treaty, called New START and signed in April by Obama and Medvedev, would improve security not only in Europe but beyond.

Ministers from six European countries — Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Norway and Bulgaria — on Saturday urged U.S. lawmakers to ratify the stalled nuclear treaty, saying failure to do so would be a setback for European security.

The pact would reduce the limits on strategic warheads held by the U.S. and Russia and would establish an inspection system. It would be a major setback for Obama if he’s unable to get it ratified by the Senate after inking it with Russia’s president earlier this year.

NATO and Moscow also were expected to sign agreements to expand the alliance’s supply routes to Afghanistan through Russia; set up a new training program in Russia for counter-narcotics agents from Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries; and agree on a program to provide training to Afghan helicopter crews.