NATO allies split on global partnership plan

SOFIA, Apr 28 (Reuters) NATO allies raised doubts today over a US-backed plan to enhance ties with countries from Asia to Scandinavia, with some arguing the alliance should focus on more pressing security priorities nearer home.

Russia also expressed concerns about the idea, warning it could have a knock-on effect on the security balance throughout the world and insisting that NATO reassure Moscow that the plan posed no threat to Russian interests.

Many NATO states recognise the alliance needs to develop new partnerships to reflect its post-Cold War face as a peacekeeper in countries such as Afghanistan, well outside its traditional Euro-Atlantic boundaries.

But a number do not want to rush into enhancing security ties with countries from Japan, Australia and New Zealand to Finland, Sweden and Israel, as put forward in the US and British-led proposals.

''We want to have a pragmatic approach to closer cooperation with partners but we don't want to build any new institutions,'' German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters at a NATO meeting in the Bulgarian capital Sofia.

US officials acknowledged the proposals had met resistance from other nations and that it was unclear whether the idea would be ripe for launching at a NATO summit scheduled for November as earlier hoped.

MOSCOW IRKED The proposal also has the potential to be an irritant in ties with Moscow, already irked by NATO's willingness to entertain the membership hopes of ex-Soviet Ukraine and Georgia and plans for US army bases in Bulgaria and Romania.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a guest at the NATO talks in Sofia, said any partnership plans were NATO's business but voiced concerns they could affect Russian interests.

''Any change in the security landscape will inevitably affect a large number of countries...We would like such processes to be carried out as transparently as possible so we can see that no threat emerges,'' he told a news conference.

French officials argued NATO should focus its efforts on ensuring major peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo were a success, while others said the alliance should concentrate on ties closer home.

''A wider partnership policy should give priority to partners in Western Balkans. It will be far more important that seeking global partners,'' said Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who next week will receive Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso at alliance headquarters in Brussels, denied there was any plan to turn NATO into a global alliance.

''NATO does not want to turn itself into a global gendarme,'' he told a news conference in Sofia, insisting the plan was not to extend the pledge of NATO's 26 alliance members to defend each other in the event of an attack.

REUTERS CH BD1956