NATO Fails To Settle Dispute Despite Compromise

NATO failed in its second attempt on Wednesday to sell a new compromise that would break the resistance of three members to providing military aid to Turkey in the event of an Iraq war and thus lead the alliance out of one of its worst crisis in its 53-year history.

"The meeting is over, they failed to agree. The three (Germany, France and Belgium) reiterated their position," a source told Reuters on Wednesday evening.

Earlier the secretary general, George Robertson of Britain, directed his efforts at the representatives of Germany, France and Belgium. The three countries are refusing to endorse a U.S. request that the alliance should begin planning to provide military support to Turkey if the United States launched a war against Iraq and Saddam Hussein then struck his northern neighbor.

Sources told the Associated Press that Roberston's plan had been stripped down to essentials: provisions to deploy airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft that would provide surveillance, Patriot missiles that would offer air defense, and special forces that would combat biological and chemical weapons. Gone from the request are provisions to provide protection for U.S. bases and to replace American troops in the Balkans, the sources said.

U.S. envoy is optimistic

Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, had expressed optimism about the direction of the discussions. "We have entered a new phase of the discussion," Burns said.

But that optimism was delivered a blow when ambassadors from the alliance's 19 member countries failed to agree on the issue late Wednesday.

The private negotiations were accompanied by a public debate on the effect that the dispute would have on the future of the alliance, an organization whose original mission ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

In the United States, the conflict has already fueled strong emotions.

The top Democrat on the House International Relations Committee said in remarks prepared for a hearing that he was "particularly disgusted by the blind intransigence and utter ingratitude" of France, Germany and Belgium. "If it were not for the heroic efforts of America's military, France, Germany and Belgium today would be Soviet socialist republics," said Tom Lantos of California. "The failure of these three states to honor their commitments is beneath contempt."

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell used more diplomatic language to express his concerns during Senate testimony on Tuesday. "The alliance is breaking itself up because it will not meet its responsibilities,'' said Powell, a retired U.S: Army general who served in Europe during the Cold War.

But German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a leading opponent to a possible U.S.-led war against Iraq, said he viewed the NATO dispute to be largely a formality. "On the issue itself, there is no problem," Schröder said Tuesday evening after he met with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar on the island of Lanzarote. And he pledged that Germany would provide the AWACS assistance and Patriot missiles to Turkey.

Reasons for the vetoes

Germany, France and Belgium filed their protest on Monday because they think the planning request would send the crisis into a "logic of war" when diplomatic alternatives still stood a chance of success.

In response to vetoes, Turkey called on NATO to reconsider the matter based on a key article in the North Atlantic Treaty, which established the alliance in 1949. "The parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened," the article says.

In opposing any war on Iraq, Schröder has put himself at odds with many of his European allies. On Tuesday, he met with one of those men, Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, who is a staunch supporter of U.S. policy against Iraq. During the meeting, the two leaders agreed that Iraq posed a threat but continued to disagree on the need to launch a war.

In one expression of support for Bush, Aznar joined seven other European leaders late last month who issued a declaration of support to the United States.

But at home, the Spanish prime minister represents a minority. A recent poll showed that more than 90 percent of the country's population opposed a war against Iraq.

The disagreement also prompted Greece, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, to call a special summit of the union's leaders on Monday.

There are now talks that there may be another meeting of NATO ambassadors on Thursday afternoon to find a solution.