Australia may expand NATO relationship_4746

[vp9sht14]

Fried paid tribute to the Netherlands, Canada and Britain for joining US troops in fighting against a Taliban insurgency in southern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border.
"NATO is not going to be making invitations."
Macedonia, Croatia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Georgia are among countries that aspire to membership.
AP - Australia will be invited to expand its relationship with NATO under a plan to be presented by US President George W Bush at a NATO summit next week.
"These five countries - at least the three Asian countries, I should say, Australia, Japan and South Korea - do not seek NATO membership," Burns said.
Australia already is the biggest non-NATO contributor to the alliance-led force of about 20,000 troops in Afghanistan.
"This will be a priority issue for the United States at this summit, and we believe NATO will agree to this program of global partnerships," Burns said at a State Department news conference.
Earlier, at a separate meeting with reporters, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said no new membership invitations would be issued at the Riga meeting to be attended by Bush and leaders of the other NATO nations.
Australia may expand NATO relationship
Six Arab countries are partners with NATO, as is Israel.
"But we seek a partnership with them so that we can train more intensively, from a military point of view, and grow closer to them because we are deployed with them.
Japan,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, Australia, South Korea,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, Sweden and Finland will be invited at the Riga, Latvia, summit to expand training and meetings with the 26-country NATO alliance but not to join, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said.
Fried urged NATO countries that do not authorise sending their troops into combat to change their positions. He did not say which countries he was talking about.
The alliance initially was formed to deter the Soviet Union in Europe.
"This is a fully modern agenda. And it's a great change from the agenda that we had with the Europeans for the five decades during the Cold War," he said.
"Our agenda with Europe is now a global agenda, and it tends to be about the rest of the world; about what we can do as partners in the Middle East, in south and east Asia,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, in Africa and in Latin America,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login," Burns said.
Bush plans to propose a partnership arrangement for five countries, including Australia, that would expand the reach of the Atlantic alliance to the Pacific Ocean.
"This is not going to be an expansion summit," he said.