LONDON [MENL] -- NATO plans to upgrade military cooperation with seven
Mediterranean countries, particularly in the area of counter-terrrorism.NATO officials said the upgrade would increase ties with the Middle East
states from what is currently termed as soft security to hard military
cooperation. The upgrade would include joint military exercises
and search-and-rescue and measures against nonconventional weapons attacks."NATO feels that vis-a-vis new security problems, including
international terrorism, we can move from political dialogue to hard
military cooperation," Nicola de Santis, a spokesman for the alliance's
Mediterranean dialogue, said.The seven Mediterranean members of the NATO dialogue are Algeria, Egypt,
Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. The dialogue began in 1994
and has been limited to information exchange, civil emergency planning,
humanitarian relief and scientific cooperation.
NOTE: The above is not the full item.
This service contains only a small portion of the information produced daily by Middle East Newsline. For a subscription to the full service, please contact Middle East Newsline at: editor@menewsline.com for further details.
