LOC23:18
20:18 GMT
ISTANBUL, Nov 20 (KUNA) -- Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Saturday the
NATO summit in Lisbon agreed to adopt the alliance's New Strategic Concept for
the coming decade which took into consideration Ankara's demands.
"The agreement falls in the framework of what we wished; we are pleased
about this," Turkey's state-run Anatolia news agency quoted Gul as saying.
He made the remarks in a press conference in Lisbon where he attended the
summit meeting of NATO Heads of State and Government.
Turkey, one of the 28 NATO member states, maintains close ties with its
southeastern neighbor Iran and was against labeling Tehran as a threat to the
alliance.
"We have met our obligations to the alliance while the NATO institutions
including the secretary general (Anders Fogh Rasmussen) understood our
sensitivities," the Turkish leader pointed out.
The New Strategic Concept, endorsed at the summit, serve as the alliance's
road map for the next 10-15 years.
Despite their concerns about Iran's nuclear and missile ambitions, the NATO
leaders did not explicitly identify Tehran as a potential enemy in the
document.
Gul said he discussed the blueprint of the document with the ministers of
foreign affairs and defense before the summit.
The draft strategy included two main points namely; the deployment of the
anti-ballistic missile defense system in Europe and the NATO-European Union
relationship.
"Regarding the first point, we have initially been against naming a
specific country as a potential threat and the NATO summit approved this
demand. As for the second point, Turkey is one of the NATO members which have
yet to get the EU membership," Gul pointed out.
Under the strategy, a limited number of US anti-ballistic missile
interceptors and radar systems will be deployed in East European countries
such as Romania and Poland and possibly a in Turkey with a view to expanding
the European missile defenses already in place.
Commenting on the NATO mission in Afghanistan, another key topic on the
agenda of the Lisbon summit, Gul reiterated Turkey's stance that military
force only could not solve the conflict.
To stabilize the situation in the war-torn country there has to be a
political process whereby the hearts of the Afghan people could be won, he
affirmed.
Led by Gul, Turkey's delegation to the one-day gathering included Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul. (end)
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