Posted on 07/01/2002 11:59:12 AM PDT by knighthawk
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO has called an extraordinary meeting to discuss Washington's threat to shut down U.N.-authorised peacekeeping missions in a row over the powers of a new global war crimes court.
NATO's 18,000-strong force in war-scarred Bosnia will almost certainly remain but European diplomats said the row was another sign of U.S. readiness to thumb its nose at the world.
"I deeply regret this dramatic step that threatens U.N. peace operations in general," Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said in a statement on Monday as his country assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union.
Denmark took over from Spain, whose presidency was marked by expressions of European disapproval at a perceived U.S. tendency to go it alone in global affairs, ignoring allies' views and lumping adversaries together in a "simplistic" way.
Washington on Sunday renewed its threat to block U.N.-backed missions unless the Security Council granted its forces immunity from arrest or prosecution by the International Criminal Court.
It vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution extending the mandate of a U.N. police-training taskforce in Bosnia for six months, but then backed a second resolution keeping it alive until midnight New York time on Wednesday (5 a.m. British time on Thursday).
In Sarajevo, the Bosnia government warned it would not have the means to plug the gap if the U.N. policing mission was shut down.
Eliminating the 1,600-strong force, which also provides training for a domestic force of some 17,000 officers, would deal a setback to Bosnia's attempts to stand on its own feet after the 1992-95 war, a government spokesman said.
NATO MISSION DOESN'T NEED U.N. MANDATE
Strictly speaking, NATO's separate peacekeeping mission in Bosnia could not fall foul of the diplomatic wrangling because it does not require a U.N. mandate to remain in operation.
Its Stabilisation Force (SFOR) -- although endorsed by a Security Council resolution -- is mandated by the 1995 Dayton Accord, which ended Europe's worst conflict since World War Two.
But diplomats said there was still a possibility that the United States could unilaterally withdraw its 2,500 SFOR troops.
Analysts said that would dent the mission's communications, intelligence and communications, rob it of political clout and have grave consequences for peacekeeping in Kosovo as well.
The NATO-led KFOR mission in the Albanian-majority province of Kosovo includes 36,000 personnel.
Former Balkans envoy Carl Bildt told Reuters: "In theory it could explode the entire Kosovo mission and close it down. I refuse to contemplate the possibility of that even happening.
"In practice, I don't know. I don't think anyone knows. This is a very dangerous exercise in diplomatic brinkmanship with possible consequences that no-one is fully aware of."
NATO spokesman Yves Brodeur told Reuters that ambassadors of the 19-nation defence alliance would hold a North Atlantic Council meeting at 3 p.m. (2 p.m. British time) to exchange "information".
"No decisions will be taken here because there are no decisions we can make here," he said.
U.S. PLAYING HARDBALL
Renewal of the U.N. mission is the first test of Washington's campaign to keep its troops out of the reach of the tribunal, which officially came into being in The Hague on Monday.
Washington says the court could infringe on national sovereignty and lead to politically motivated prosecutions of its officials or soldiers working abroad.
Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, pointing out that the court could have a disproportionate impact on America, said the Bush administration was "quite rightly playing hardball".
But an EU diplomat said Washington was inconsistent, on the one hand threatening Yugoslavia with tougher conditions for aid if it does not hand over war crimes suspects to an international tribunal and then seeking exemption from the ICC for itself.
If "thumbing our nose at the world" means protecting National Sovereignty, I say, THUMB AWAY!
This court (sic) is a farce at best.
It's about time that the most powerful nation in the world tells these third world/old world countries that we are willing to work with them, but we are going to protect our own people first. if you don't like it, to bad that's the way it's going to be.
A few thousand socialists with microphones do not out vote Hundreds of Millions of Americans that want us, The U.S. of A., out of Bosnia and the UN... Now and Forever.
They must be watching the Milosevic 'kangaroo Tribunal'.
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