FOREIGN POLICY AIDE TO TURKISH PRESIDENT LIKELY TO ASSUME NATO DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL POST
PanARMENIAN.Net
26.01.2010 18:28 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ One of the two vacant deputy secretary-general
posts at NATO is highly likely to be assumed by a Turkish diplomat,
sources close to the NATO leadership say.
Ambassador Huseyin Dirioz, currently the top foreign policy aide to the
Turkish president, is among the four candidates who run for the post.
Sources say chances are high that Dirioz will be appointed as deputy
secretary-general.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called "the (North)
Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based
on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949. The
NATO headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, and the organization
constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its member states
agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.
NATO has added new members seven times since first forming in 1949 (the
last 2 in 2009). NATO comprises 28 members: Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria,
Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany,
Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia,
Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
New membership in the alliance has been largely from Eastern Europe and
the Balkans, including former members of the Warsaw Pact. At the 2008
summit in Bucharest, three countries were promised future invitations:
the Republic of Macedonia, Georgia and Ukraine.
Other potential candidate countries include Montenegro and Bosnia and
Herzegovina, which joined the Adriatic Charter of potential members
in 2008.