BRUSSELS -- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is 'not a military subcontractor to the United Nations' and the two organizations should be able to 'act independently,' NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woerner said in a speech Friday.
Woerner appeared to be seeking stronger political backing among NATO members for a more-independent response to crises in military hot spots.
Speaking on the second day of a four-day conference in Brussels by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, the NATO chief said it is time to offer concrete hope to the nations of central and eastern Europe that they can one day join the military alliance.
Drawing a lesson from the Yugoslav conflict, Woerner said 'effective crisis management will frequently depend on close cooperation between major international organizations -- especially the U.N. and NATO.'
He said, however: 'NATO cannot be regarded as an instrument or as a military subcontractor to the United Nations -- nor do we expect that the United Nations should accept NATO's leadership. Both must maintain the possibility to act independently.'
NATO has come in for sharp criticism recently over its response to the Yugoslav crisis, and diplomats have skirmished over whether NATO or the United Nations would have command and control of peacekeeping troops if a peace accord is signed in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
France and some EC countries have advocated giving control to the United Nations, but Washington is opposed.
U.S. President Bill Clinton said Wednesday that a peace accord would have 'to be able to be enforced or guaranteed by a peacekeeping force from NATO, not the U.N., but NATO.'
Woerner denied that NATO shares blame for the failure to stop the bloody war in the former Yugoslavia. The international community turned to the United Nations, he said, and NATO provided support whenever the United Nations requested it.
He said concentrated political will is necessary if the alliance is to improve its ability to keep or make peace in areas of conflict. 'The first and most important requirement is a clear and unambiguous mandate, ' he said.
On admitting central European countries to NATO, Woerner said, 'The time has come to open a more concrete perspective to those countries .. which want to join NATO and which we may consider eligible for future membership.'
'Even if there are no immediate plans to enlarge NATO, such a move would increase the stability of the whole of Europe and be in the interest of all nations, including Russia and Ukraine. Nobody will be isolated.'
At a summit in January, leaders of NATO nations are expected to discuss admitting new members, including three central European countries -- Poland, Hungary and the Czech republic -- that have insistently sought membership.
Until recently, the Western alliance politely rejected those requests to avoid antagonizing Moscow, which opposed the move for fear it would be isolated by a cordon sanitaire. However, Yeltsin declared during a visit to several central European countries at the end of August that he would not object if Poland or the Czech and Slovak republics joined.NEWLN: bl-emki
