Turkey's leaders to join key Nato summit

President Abdullah Gul, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and National Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul will represent Turkey in the NATO Summit meeting which will begin in Portugal on Friday and last for two days.

Heads of state and government of 28 countries as well as presidents of Russia and Afghanistan and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will attend the summit where important decisions that closely concern Turkey will be made.

It is envisioned that participants will adopt Strategic Concept which will set the road map of NATO for the next 10 to 15 years.

The Strategic Concept includes two important issues which closely concern Turkey. The first issue is the missile defense systems which the United States wants to install in Europe. One of these systems will be set up in Turkey. A consensus has not been reached on how command-control authority will be determined in the countries where the system will be installed. The second issue is the new steps which will be taken in NATO-EU cooperation.

Several problems emerged when Norway - non-EU member but a NATO member - was included in European Security & Defense Policy (ESDP), but Turkey was not included in. ESDP performs operations together with NATO. As EU-member Greek Cypriot administration and NATO-member Turkey are vetoing each other (Greek Cypriot administration in ESDP and Turkey in NATO), NATO-EU relations cannot reach on a desired level.

Turkish President Gul sent letters to leaders of NATO-member states, and called them to take into consideration the legitimate concerns of NATO-member countries which were not EU members.

Meanwhile, NATO-Russia relations is another important topic of the summit. The relations, which seem to be frozen after Georgian war in August 2008, are envisioned to gain a new momentum.

Also, withdrawal program of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan is expected to be determined during the summit. Turkey, which has 1,790 soldiers in Afghanistan, will begin to reduce the presence of its soldiers in that country according to the timetable of NATO.


/World Bulletin/