U.S. at odds with France on NATO role in Darfur
By Mark John

Reuters
04/21/05 16:14 ET

VILNIUS, April 21 (Reuters) – The United States urged NATO on Thursday
to respond quickly to any request for help in the Darfur conflict, but
France insisted the alliance could not be the “gendarme of the world”.

Despite NATO hints it would be ready to help a 2,000-strong African
Union mission struggling to monitor a shaky ceasefire in the region,
the AU has so far not made any request for support.

But U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who raised the conflict
at wide-ranging NATO talks in Lithuania, said it should be ready to
offer help with logistics and planning if asked.

“If there is a request, I would hope NATO would activate quickly …
We all have a responsibility to do what we can to alleviate the
suffering in Darfur,” she said.

However French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier disagreed that there
was a role for NATO in Darfur and stressed that Africans should retain
the lead in peace efforts.

“NATO does not have a calling to be the gendarme of the world,”
he told a news conference at the same meeting.

The AU troops are not mandated as peacekeepers and have limited powers
to protect civilians in Darfur, a region the size of France in western
Sudan. Survivors of militia attacks have demanded that peacekeepers
be sent into the war-torn region.

Tens of thousands have been killed and more than 2 million uprooted by
two years of fighting between non-Arab rebels and the Arab-dominated
government. Khartoum denies accusations it is backing militias known
as Janjaweed.

FRENCH INFLUENCE

French officials see the European Union as better suited to helping in
the region than NATO. The alliance’s involvement would mean a further
U.S. presence on a continent where former colonial power France is
keen to retain strategic influence.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who has also mooted a
role for the alliance in Darfur, stressed the aim was “not to have
NATO boots on the ground” but to offer support.

“NATO has the most sophisticated planning machinery in the world,”
he told reporters.

The disagreement on Darfur came at NATO talks where France also
rejected a U.S.-backed initiative to turn the alliance into a
transatlantic forum for debate on broad strategic issues.

Washington backs proposals by de Hoop Scheffer to broaden the 26-member
alliance’s remit, seeing it as a way for its voice to be heard in
European policy-making.

Rice on Wednesday described NATO as “the premier forum” for
transatlantic political dialogue and said NATO allies should be able
to use it to discuss any issue affecting them.

“We want to use NATO more, and more efficiently,” she said.

But Barnier said key issues such as Iran’s nuclear programme were
better dealt with elsewhere and stressed that the EU insisted on full
autonomy over its own policy decisions.

“NATO is first and foremost a military organisation,” Barnier said,
adding that other bodies such as the United Nations were better
suited to dealing with issues like the nuclear programmes of North
Korea or Iran.