Russia, NATO agree on draft documents for Lisbon summit

MOSCOW, November 18 (RIA Novosti)

"We finalized the drafts of the main documents for the Russia-NATO summit late Wednesday" 00:41 18/11/2010

 RIA Novosti. Mikhail Fomichev

Russia and NATO on Wednesday finished drafting the main documents for an upcoming meeting of the Russia-NATO Council, Moscow's envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said.

The Russia-NATO Council summit will be held on November 20 in Lisbon. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is due to take part in the top-level gathering for the first time since the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, which soured Russia's relations with the alliance.

"We finalized the drafts of the main documents for the Russia-NATO summit late Wednesday," Rogozin wrote in his Twitter blog. "It should be a very productive summit."

Moscow hopes that the summit in Lisbon will finally put an end to the post-Cold War period and will set guidelines toward a strategic partnership between Russia and NATO.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen earlier said the alliance hoped to work with Russia on a variety of issues, including the European missile defense (targeting Iran).

MOSCOW, November 18 (RIA Novosti)

Lisbon summit seen "turning point" for NATO

English.news.cn   2010-11-18 09:07:53 FeedbackPrintRSS

by Xinhua Writer Paul Ames

BRUSSELS, Nov. 18, 2010 (Xinhua) --

The NATO summit this week will mark an undoubted turning point in the history of the Western alliance (in the service of the Zionist Empire) as it draws up a roadmap to end the long combat mission in Afghanistan and adopts a new strategy to underpin its response to a panoply of 21st-century threats.

Meeting Friday and Saturday in Lisbon, leaders of the 28 NATO nations are expected to endorse a plan proposed by U.S. President Barrack Obama to begin the withdrawal of their 130,000 troops engaged in the bloody fight against Afghanistan's Taliban fighters (referred to by Xinhua as "insurgents" following NATO media terminology).

Under the proposal, NATO forces will gradually hand over prime responsibility for the country's security to the Afghan army by 2014.

The lessons of the costly Afghan war have helped shape the new "Strategic Concept" which the NATO leaders are set to approve in the Portuguese capital.

It is designed to equip the alliance with the tools to handle modern day threats from terrorism and regional conflicts (as a result of the NATO invasions of Muslim countries) to cyber-attacks and natural disasters linked to global warming. That blueprint for the next decade is also expected to reflect new geo-political realities by seeking to reach out to the wider world, developing partnerships with powers such as China and India.

However, the brave new vision risks being undermined by a rift between the United States and European allies viewed as increasingly reluctant to spend on defense and to commit troops to dangerous overseas missions.

Washington and the NATO headquarters in Brussels are concerned that budget cuts by cash-strapped Europeans are eroding allied unity and obliging the United States to bear an ever-greater security burden. The message in Lisbon will be for Europeans to shed fat like bloated defense-ministry bureaucracies and obsolete Cold War-era equipment, but not cut military muscle.

The NATO leaders are also expected to endorse plans to build up a missile defense shield which the United States says is needed to protect the West from the threat of a ballistic attack from Iran.

The scheme has been modified from the one put forward by the Bush administration which triggered an angry response from Moscow. NATO allies are hoping Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will agree in Lisbon to cooperate in the development of the new network of radar bases and interceptor missiles.

Medvedev is one of over 20 non-NATO leaders set to join the summitry in Lisbon. Obama is scheduled to meet separately with leaders of the European Union on Saturday afternoon where talks are likely to take an economic turn. Nations such as Australia and Georgia who have significant troop numbers serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan will be there. Japan, the EU, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will join talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on economic support to his embattled government.

There will be tension in Karzai's meeting with Obama and other NATO leaders, following the Afghan leader's criticism of the international force's military tactics -- notably night raids that target suspected Taliban and al-Qaida militants which Karzai claimed were alienating public opinion.

U.S. officials have been angered by the comments made by Karzai in a Washington Post interview and expressed concern they undermine the strategy of Gen. David Petraeus, the American commander of ISAF forces who has pumped additional troops into the country in an effort to weaken the Taliban before the planned handover to Afghan forces.

NATO is insisting that the planned transition to Afghan ownership of the security operation will not be a timetable for the total withdrawal of foreign troops.

Even if combat operations led by NATO are wound down by 2014, thousands of troops are expected to stay in the country in a training-and-mentoring role. The leaders will also want to thread warily to avoid giving the impression they are going to cut and run from Afghanistan, abandoning the civilian population to a return of the Taliban's harsh rule.

Canada announced ahead of the summit that it will be maintaining 950 soldiers in the country in a training role, after its combat mission ends in 2011. The new French Defense Minister Alain Juppe said there were no plans to pull out French troops until Afghan forces are ready to replace them, even as he warned of the dangers of the campaign which has killed 2,220 foreign soldiers since 2001.

Obama will be looking for America's NATO allies to show further commitments to the Afghan mission and to maintaining effective defense forces able to deal with such far-flung missions should they arise in the future.

There is widespread concern within the U.S. defense establishment about the European allies' willingness and ability to pull their military weight. Recent defense cuts by Britain, Germany and many other European nations anxious to cut bulging budget deficits have led some in Washington to question the value of the 60-year-old North Atlantic alliance.

 On the eve of the Lisbon meeting, the official line from White House officials was however that the adoption of the new strategy will inject new vigor into NATO.

The alliance's current mission statement dates back to 1999 and focused on immediate post-Cold War concerns in Europe. Since then, the global security landscape has been transformed by the 9/11 attacks; wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the rise of emerging powers; Russia's revived assertiveness in international affairs; new threats to trade routes, energy supplies and IT networks; the spread of nuclear weapons technology; intensified regional tensions in places like Pakistan, the Caucasus or Horn of Africa; and the security implications of climate change.

Full details of the new strategic concept have been kept under wraps until the summit, but it is expected to address many of those fears calling for more flexible, quick reaction forces able to deploy for long-distance missions; increased investment on air-transport, unmanned aircraft, cyber-defenses and technology to counter roadside bombs; closer collaboration between civilian and military assets; and widening diplomatic and military ties with partners around the world.

Once again U.S. concerns will be ensuring that European nations provide the resources to back up the vision.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will aim to set an example for nations seeking to spend scarce funds more efficiently. He will detail plans to shed 4,000 personnel from NATO command structure and halve the number of headquarters.

Leaders are likely to agree on a 10-year plan to spend 200 million euros (270 million U.S. dollars) to link up already planned battlefield missile defenses to the wider U.S. shield.

It remains to be seen if Medvedev will agree Russian cooperation with the plan. NATO is also looking for Russian help in Afghanistan both with supply lines for its forces and providing helicopters for the Afghan armed forces.

The strategic concept is expected to confirm the central role of NATO's nuclear deterrent and stress the continued commitment of all allies to defend each other should any one of them be attacked.

Editor: Xiong Tong