By KUNA
Brussels : The Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said here Thursday that he is encouraged by developments in Kosovo, which declared independence in February.
“NATO as an organization has not the authority to recognize a country. Our job is security,” he said in his opening remarks to a meeting of foreign ministers of the 26-member Alliance.
“I think we should all be encouraged by what we have not seen inside Kosovo, since the declaration of independence: no inter-ethnic violence, no mass flows of refugees … this is positive,” he said.
NATO has about 16,000 troops under its KFOR mission in Kosovo and Scheffer said it would continue to play its role there.
Turning to Afghanistan, where NATO has a major military mission under the ISAF, he said, “Our operation there, in support of the Afghan people, is achieving success.” Scheffer said the upcoming NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, in April would approve a political-military plan on Afghanistan for the coming years.
NATO enlargement is also prominently on the agenda of today’s meeting, especially the membership prospects of Albania, Croatia, and Republic of Macedonia.
The ministers will also discuss NATO’s relations with Ukraine and Georgia. Both countries have recently made known their aspirations to move formally into NATO’s Membership Action Plan.