NATO to hold first meeting in Muslim state

BRUSSELS, March 16 (UPI) -- NATO ambassadors will hold their first meeting in a Muslim country next month when they gather with north African and Mideast counterparts in Morocco.

The meeting, which will take place in Rabat April 6-7, aims to promote closer contacts between the north Atlantic alliance's 26 members and the "Mediterranean dialogue" states of Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. Last month, defense ministers from the seven states met their NATO colleagues in Taormina, Sicily.

NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the meeting, which will be chaired by Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, would assess what the Mediterranean dialogue has achieved in its first decade and agree to future joint projects. Alliance officials said Israel, Algeria and Morocco are expected to join Operation Active Endeavor at the Rabat meeting. Under the operation, NATO ships are patrolling the Mediterranean, monitoring shipping and providing escorts to non-military vessels through the Straits of Gibraltar to help detect, deter and protect against terrorist activity.

Ambassadors will also discuss further joint military exercises, ways of making the two sides' forces more interoperable and how to manage crisis situations in the Mediterranean basin.