Kuwait, NATO sign intelligence-sharing pact

KUWAIT, Dec 12 (Reuters) Kuwait today signed an agreement to share certain types of classified intelligence with NATO, the first such accord between the Western military organisation and a Gulf state.

NATO already has similar pacts with partners in eastern Europe and West Asia states and is looking to extend them to the Gulf, which it sees as a strategically key region in the fight against terrorism.

''This is a security pact to maintain confidentiality in the exchange of information between NATO and Kuwait,'' Sheikh Thamer Ali al-Sabah, acting director of pro-Western Kuwait's National Security Agency, told reporters.

''It's basically for exchange of security information and maintaining its confidentiality,'' he said. The pact gives Kuwait access to classified NATO information on security, defence and counterterrorism, he added.

The agreement was signed on the sidelines of a conference of Gulf Arab states and NATO.

A NATO official said the intelligence it envisaged sharing was information needed to boost practical support by Kuwait for NATO missions, citing in particular the patrols by alliance ships in the Mediterranean aimed at deterring terrorist activity.

''It can go as far as both parties want it to go,'' the official said, adding that one aim was to ensure that NATO and Kuwaiti equipment was able to function together.

NATO officials have in the past acknowledged that allies do not use the alliance as a clearing house for the most sensitive national intelligence, with nations preferring to deal with each other bilaterally for such information.

REUTERS SHB RN2003