NATO Chief: Door Is Open For Ireland’s Membership
The Irish Times
February 11, 2013
Door is open for Ireland to join Nato, says military alliance’s chief
Suzanne Lynch
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) would welcome any application by Ireland to join the organisation, its secretary general has said…
In an interview with The Irish Times ahead of the first visit to Ireland by a Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Nato had an “open-door policy” towards membership of the organisation.
“Our door remains open for European countries, European democracies that fulfil the necessary criteria and can contribute to Euro-Atlantic security, but of course it’s for individual partners to decide how they want to develop their relationship and partnership with Nato.”
Bilateral programme
While Ireland is not a member of Nato, it has ties with the organisation through the Partnership for Peace Programme (PFP), a bilateral programme that allows for Irish forces to be used for peacekeeping and crisis management where there is a UN mandate and parliamentary approval.
Mr Rasmussen travels to Dublin tomorrow for an informal meeting of EU defence ministers at Dublin Castle.
He will also deliver a speech at the Institute of European Affairs tomorrow evening at which he is expected to call for further co-operation between Ireland and Nato, particularly in the area of military training and capability.
Highlighting the participation of Irish defence forces in UN-led operations over the last 50 years, including in Afghanistan, Mr Rasmussen is expected to outline how Ireland has benefited from its relationship with Nato, arguing that the PFP has allowed Ireland to contribute to international missions, something it would be unable to do on its own.
Mr Rasmussen said he would “absolutely” welcome any decision by Ireland to seek membership of the organisation, although he said “it is for Ireland to decide its relationship with Nato or any other organisation…We have a very well functioning partnership between Ireland and Nato, a partnership that fully respects Ireland’s policy of neutrality,” he said.
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Crisis in Syria
Mr Rasmussen defended Nato’s approach to Syria. “Very often I am asked, ‘Why is it that you could collect a successful operation in Libya and why not in Syria?’ and the answer is, there is a clear difference.
“In Libya we had a United Nations mandate, we had support from countries in the region, but in Syria these conditions are not fulfilled. Even the opposition in Syria doesn’t request a foreign military intervention…”
Nato currently has 28 member states.
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Nato remains the world’s largest military alliance and accounts for about half of all defence spending.
Ireland has escaped so far.How long before the rest of the world, then we will have no enemies and will not need it?
“Why is it that you could collect a successful operation in Libya and why not in Syria?”
The Libyans must be delighted that the operation was such a sucess, just like the first NATO post-cold war success, in Yugoslavia.
Libya: A Recipe for Success
“We led from the front,” Obama said, by “introducing the resolution in the United Nations that allowed us to protect civilians in Libya” and then by deploying U.S. pilots to destroy Moammar Gadhafi’s air defenses and U.S. personnel to coordinate the air campaign.
In the end, said the president, the effort “only cost us $1 billion as opposed to $1 trillion” — a not-too-veiled comparison to the war in Iraq started by his predecessor. And, “not a single U.S. troop [was] on the ground … not a single U.S. troop was killed.”
“That, I think, is a recipe for success in the future.”
President Obama
October 25, 2011