NATO ready to lend more help to AU in Darfur

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer welcomed on Thursday a request by the African Union for more logistical help for its troops in Darfur, saying the alliance would study what it could do.

NATO has been supplying airlift and training to AU troops and made it clear it would extend that support if an AU request was forthcoming.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he received a letter this week from AU chief Alpha Oumar Konare requesting an extension of help and added that he had put Konare's request to a meeting of alliance defence ministers in Brussels.

"We are now moving on with this," he said after the meeting, adding that NATO logistical support could range from advice on operations to help in setting up an operations centre. - Reuters June 8, 2006.



Photo: UK Defence Secretary Desmond Browne, left, looks across the room as he sits next to his U.S. counterpart Donald Rumsfeld during a meeting of NATO defense ministers at the alliance headquarters in Brussels, Thursday June 8, 2006. NATO defence ministers on Thursday will discuss, among other issues, the expansion of NATOs peacekeeping force in Afghanistan and the Alliances operations and missions in Darfur, Iraq and Kosovo. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)