NATO debates new compromise on Turkey

The proposed change would leave the options on the table focused entirely on Turkey’s request for help through the dispatch of AWACS radar planes, Patriot anti-missile batteries and specialized units to counter poison gas or germ warfare attacks. NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson was hoping that would persuade the French, Germans and Belgians to drop their objections and start to patch up the alliance’s worst internal dispute in years.
For almost a month, the holdouts have blocked the start of military planning to help Turkey, saying the move would send a signal that NATO is engaged on an irreversible path of war and would undermine U.N. efforts to end the Iraq crisis peacefully. “The alliance is breaking itself up because it will not meet its responsibilities,” U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell warned in Washington Tuesday as the stalemate dragged on. The division in the alliance threatens U.S. efforts to rally support in the U.N. Security Council for military action against Iraq. France and Germany, joined by Russia and China, are seeking more time for stronger U.N. inspections in a proposal opposed by Washington and London. NATO’s dispute intensified Monday when Turkey invoked the alliance’s mutual defense treaty to ask for assistance, but was rebuffed by the three. Critics on both sides of the Atlantic said the holdouts sent a dangerous message of disunity to the Iraqi leadership. “You cannot say Turkey doesn’t feel threatened,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in The Hague, Netherlands. “There is one man and one regime that can profit from this (division): Saddam Hussein.”