ELIF UNAL ARSLAN
ANKARA - TDN - Leaders of 26 member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance are expected to use a two-day summit meeting opening in Istanbul today to reinforce commitment for a NATO mission in Afghanistan.
However, U.S. efforts to grant the Alliance a key role in the stabilization of Iraq, on the eve of the transfer of power to the interim government by the coalition administration, are unlikely to produce any concrete result.
Some NATO member countries already maintain troops in Iraq but not under the Alliance umbrella.
The Istanbul summit, also attended by 20 non-member country leaders, is the first highest level gathering since the NATO enlargement last November.
Turkey, by hosting the largest of such events in its history, seeks to boost its role in the region and as a bridge between the West and the Muslim World.
Even the logo of the summit was chosen as an Istanbul suspended bridge in order to highlight Muslim but secular Turkey's aspiration.
Observers say a successful summit meeting would also raise Turkey's profile in the eyes of the European Union from which it seeks to receive a date later this year to start membership negotiations.
Some NATO countries, including France, Germany and Britain, are the heavy weights of the European Union.
But, the summit meetings are clearly to be dominated by a number of international and regional matters.
Afghanistan task
Turkish officials say Afghanistan was chosen particularly for summit discussions as the NATO leaders do not want to see cracks appearing among the member countries on a thorny issue such as Iraq.
At the end of the two day summit, NATO is expected to reiterate commitment for its mission in Afghanistan and announce the details of planned troop deployment there.
News reports say a 6,400-strong NATO peacekeeping force is to take command of four or five military-civilian reconstruction teams in northern Afghanistan and deploy about 1,200 troops for the polls.
Those troops were earlier pledged by some member countries but failed to keep their promises. NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the Alliance would prove in the Istanbul summit that it fulfilled its promises for Afghanistan.
In a newspaper interview on Sunday, Scheffer said NATO must remain committed to Afghanistan, keeping its promise to the Afghan interim government.
"The international community in its entirety, not just NATO, cannot allow itself to see Afghanistan return to being a safe haven for terrorism," he said.
The NATO mission in Afganistan is seen as the first test for the Alliance's new role of security and stabilization reaching out of Europe after the end of the Cold War. Before the summit, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai urged for more NATO troops to provide a secure environment for Afghanistan's first free elections in September.
Human Rights Watch said NATO should immediately send more troops, warning that blame for a failure of the polls would rest on the United States and its NATO allies.
The rights group said NATO's foot-dragging had contributed to a worsening security situation and more military support was needed to protect voter registration and independent candidates threatened by Islamic militants and warlord intimidation.
NATO training for Iraqi armed forces
On NATO's possible contribution in international efforts to restore order in Iraq, officials say leaders are due to issue a separate statement when they wrap up the summit. But a strong-worded statement looks unlikely to emerge since opposition was powerful by the European countries to U.S. demands for a large NATO role in Iraq.
Even before the summit, U.S. President George Bush was aware that he would fail to convince some European allies such as France which would be a second blow to Washington after the G8 summit earlier this month. Bush said NATO's role could be limited to the training of Iraqi security forces.
The United States seeks to involve more international partners to deal with escalating insurgent violence there and to bring stability to Iraq. However, European leaders try to avoid appearing shoulder to shoulder with him as the U.S. invasion of Iraq and its aftermaths attract furry among the European voters.
Latest elections for European Parliament showed leaders supporting Washington's policy on Iraq such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair lost considerable public support.
On Sunday, the NATO secretary-general said the international community must not watch with indifference as Iraq goes up in flames.
A day before, he announced that NATO nations have reached an initial agreement on plans to help train Iraq's armed forces following an urgent request from the county's interim leader and expect to finalize a deal Monday.
The 26 allies would back "strengthening of freedom, democracy, human rights, rule of law and security for all the Iraqi people," he said in a statement. "Allies are united in their full support for the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of the Republic of Iraq."
It added that the "NATO ambassadors reached an initial agreement to respond positively to the request of the Iraqi Interim Government for assistance with the training of its security forces."
Dialogue with Broader Middle East
Also on the summit agenda are discussions on widening the dialogue between the Alliance and the Middle East through a new mechanism called Istanbul Cooperation Dialogue.
The mechanism will extend the existing Mediterranean Dialogue to include Gulf countries as well and is expected to be complementary to the U.S.-backed efforts to encourage democratization in the Middle East as part of the Broader Middle East and North Africa Project. The project is expected to open the way for cooperation in preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, fighting against terrorism and organized crime.
The NATO summit is also expected to endorse an anti-terror plan designed to boost the Alliance's effectiveness in the fight against terrorism
Separately, the summit is also set to agree to hand over peacekeeping in Bosnia to the European Union and set up permanent NATO diplomatic missions in Central Asia and the Caucasus.