TALLINN: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Estonia Thursday for talks with her NATO counterparts about the alliance’s role in nuclear defence and ways to drum up more trainers for the Afghan army.
The gathering in the Estonian capital Tallinn, starting at 1030 GMT, will first focus on plans to reform NATO to deal with modern security threats, followed by a working dinner on nuclear and missile defence policy.
The United States “wants to see a more efficient and streamlined alliance,” which has grown rapidly to 28 members, a senior State Department official told reporters traveling with Clinton.
The official also said on condition of anonymity that Clinton, at the dinner with her counterparts, would build on US-sponsored efforts to reduce nuclear arms as well as tackle “the question of non-strategic nuclear weapons in NATO.”
He did not elaborate.
But Germany, Belgium and several other countries appear intent on calling for the United States to remove its tactical nuclear weapons, something Washington is reluctant to do without Russia cutting its tactical arsenal.
There are no official figures published but there are thought to be some 240 US nuclear weapons scattered around Europe in five NATO nations; Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.
Another senior US official said earlier it would be NATO’s first real talks on nuclear policy since the early 1990s.
“Our principle, and most important guide-post for moving into this discussion is that we don’t want to divide the alliance on this issue,” he said.
The ministers will also mull whether to grant Bosnia-Hercegovina membership action plan (MAP) status, the penultimate step to joining the 28-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Officials suggest this is unlikely to happen.
The senior US official praised Bosnia for taking positive steps toward gaining MAP status by its deploying 100 troops to Afghanistan and agreeing to dispose of surplus ammunition and weapons.
Friday’s morning session will include talks about cooperation with Russia — although no Russian officials are due to attend — and talks among NATO nations and partners fighting the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and their backers in Afghanistan.
Clinton is scheduled to have talks with Zalmai Rassoul, the new Afghan foreign minister.
Ahead of the meeting, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged the allies to help find 450 new trainers to help build up the Afghan army and police to take responsibility for national security on their own.
“For transition to take place, we need Afghan forces to play their part. Which means we need trainers,” he told reporters in Brussels.
“We are still short about 450 trainers. It’s a relatively small number. But those trainers have a big effect,” he said, and urged the ministers “to see what they can do to free up these mission-critical resources.”
Rasmussen said the ministers would also seek to agree “on the principles and decision-making framework” for security duties to be handed from NATO and US-led forces to the Afghans.
NATO leads a force of some 90,000 troops drawn from more than 40 nations and whose aim is to restore stability and democracy to Afghanistan in the face of a virulent insurgency.
