EUR: Obama calls on NATO allies to raise game
04 Apr 2009 12:11 AM
STRASBOURG, April 3 AFP - US President Barack Obama has urged the NATO allies to boost their own military strengths, and has warned that Europe is more likely to fall victim to a terror attack than the United States.
In Europe on his first major overseas trip since becoming president in January, and seeking to drum up support for his new Afghan strategy, Obama on Friday praised Washington's partners but said they should raise their game.
"NATO is the most successful alliance in modern history. The basic premise of NATO was that Europe's security was the United States' security, and vice-versa," Obama said in France ahead of NATO's 60th anniversary summit.
"That is its central tenet, that is a pillar of American foreign policy that has been unchanging over the last 60 years. It is something that I am here to affirm," he added, standing alongside France's President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"We would like to see Europe have much more robust defence capabilities. That is not something we discourage, we are not looking to be the patron of Europe, we are looking to be partners with Europe," he said.
"The more capable they are defensively, the more we can act in concert on the shared challenges that we face."
Obama underlined his point by warning that he believed al-Qaeda is more of a danger to targets in Europe than to the United States.
"In fact it is probably more likely that al-Qaeda would be able to launch a serious terrorist attack in Europe than in the United States, because of proximity," Obama said.
NATO's summit, starting on Friday and held in the French city of Strasbourg and over the German border in Kehl and Baden-Baden, is expected to be dominated by its current mission fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
There are 70,000 foreign troops in Afghanista, mostly under NATO command, and Obama is expected to use the summit to showcase his new Afghan war plan and enlist support from sometimes sceptical European allies.
Washington has decided to send 21,000 extra US troops and is considering deploying 10,000 more, while asking the allies to contribute more by providing more soldiers as well as civilian support staff to train the police.
Obama used a joint news conference in Strasbourg -- after their first one-on-one talks since being elected -- to praise Sarkozy's "courageous" leadership.
Obama said France, the United States' oldest ally, had "once again taken an extraordinary leadership role in NATO".
"Thanks to the great leadership of President Sarkozy, courageous on so many fronts, it's hard to keep up," Obama said.
Sarkozy said, meanwhile, that France has agreed to accept a prisoner from the controversial Guantanamo Bay US military prison camp in Cuba, which is to be closed down.
A US official in Washington had said earlier that France was considering taking in an Algerian detainee "because there are historic links between France and Algeria".
