Friday
Apr032009
NATO Summit: The Latest From Strasbourg
Friday, April 3, 2009 at 22:00
The NATO summit is due to begin, with France set to rejoin the NATO fold. Here's what we're hearing so far:
UPDATE (10pm): talks have closed for the night with no decision reached on a new secretary general.
- US-French relations appear to be strong- Obama says he did not have to drag France "kicking and screaming" back into NATO; Sarkozy evokes France's sense of unity with America post-9/11, and suggests that France may accept a Guantánamo detainee.
- Obama, under cover of praising French involvement in Afghanistan, has said that, "it is probably more likely that al-Qaeda would be able to launch a serious terrorist attack in Europe than in the United States because of proximity. This is not an American mission, this is a Nato mission, this is an international mission."
- We reported earlier that the UK was unlikely to send more troops to Afghanistan. Gordon Brown has now said that troops may be sent in a temporary security role for the upcoming Afghan presidential elections- but that they will number in the hundreds rather than thousands.
- The press is having a field day over the Michelle Obama-Carla Bruni 'glam-off'. (The Guardian has a dedicated live-blog.)
UPDATE (10pm): talks have closed for the night with no decision reached on a new secretary general.
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