News

The summit meeting of NATO leaders ended on Friday in Prague after two days of talks on the enlargement, transformation and modernisation of the alliance. At the summit, leaders of the 53-year-old Western defence organisation agreed to take in new members, create a new strike force, acquire new equipment and build new partnerships extending to Central Asia and the Caucasus.

On Thursday the alliance made a historic decision to invite seven former Eastern Bloc nations to join in a landmark expansion. NATO leaders also decided to create a rapid Response Force which is expected to be used in global anti-terror missions and operations against so-called rogue states, and agreed to back UN efforts to disarm Iraq. On Friday representatives of the 19 NATO states continued talks by meeting their counterparts from 27 East European and Central Asian nations that have partnership accords with the alliance.

The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Anatoly Zlenko said on Friday that his government was cooperating with a probe into allegations that Kiev approved the sale of Kolchuga early warning radar systems to Iraq. However Mr Zlenko cautioned that Ukraine could not give out all data on Kolchuga sales. British and American experts have been investigating the accusation that Kiev authorised the radar sale to Baghdad. The Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma attended a NATO partnership meeting on Friday despite misgivings voiced by the alliance's Secretary General George Robertson. NATO had told Mr Kuchma he would not be welcome at the meeting and downgraded separate talks with Ukraine from head of state to foreign minister level, but could not prevent Mr Kuchma attending the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council meeting.

The German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder used the summit to end a diplomatic row with the United States over Iraq. President Bush had been deeply angered during Germany's election campaign over Mr Schroeder's outspoken opposition to US threats of military force against Iraq. After months of refusing to say if the US would be allowed to use its military bases in Germany and overfly rights in the event of an Iraq war, Schroeder told reporters: "We don't have any plans to put limits on the movements of our friends." But the German leader repeated his pledge not to send troops to participate in military strikes against Baghdad. "Military means must be used only as a last resort for fighting international terrorism," he said, adding: "There will not be any German military participation."

After meeting Czech veterans from the Gulf War and former members of the Czech military unit stationed in Kuwait, the US President George W. Bush left for Russia where he met the Russian President Vladimir Putin. US officials said Mr Bush would pledge to respect Russia's economic interests in any military action to disarm Iraq, and try to soften the blow of NATO's expansion. A senior US official said Mr Bush had chosen to visit Mr Putin right after the summit "to demonstrate that what happened today is a new chapter, and it is a new chapter that is favourable for Russia and favourable for its people".