Nato emerges from bunker with new role in Afghanistan

Nato is set to take up its first official role in Afghanistan by providing support for the international security assistance force (Isaf) in Kabul, senior alliance sources said yesterday.

Next week's Prague summit, billed as the launchpad for Nato's most radical transformation ever, will also extend the transatlantic alliance's peacekeeping mission in Macedonia because the EU has failed to agree how to do it.

Both steps, revealed by a senior Nato official in Brussels, underline that the alliance is busy and relevant to transatlantic security, after a year of reports that it had disappeared from view because of its marginal role in the US-led war on terrorism.

It has also emerged that China approached Nato last month to ask for a security dialogue - a sure sign that Beijing at least is taking the alliance's global role seriously. Nato forged a new relationship with Russia earlier this year.

Prague was originally billed as the enlargement summit because it is taking in seven eastern European members, but the message now is that new equipment and new missions are set to transform it.

Combating terrorism and weapons of mass destruction and the launch of a 20,000-strong "response force" will be the main items, alongside an effort to enhance capabilities and thus narrow the gap between the US and its European allies.

Iraq is also certain to figure prominently in exchanges between President George Bush and fellow leaders in the Czech capital, though there will be no decisions on military planning as long as UN weapons inspections are proceeding smoothly.

But the support role for Nato in Afghanistan suggests that something similar could eventually happen in Iraq. Nato's military headquarters at Mons in Belgium will put together a force for Isaf's next six-month mandate in the Kabul area and provide planning, strategic airlift, logistics, communication and intelligence support. It will be led by the German and Dutch troops who are to replace the current Turkish command.

Nato offered to assist the US when it launched attacks on the Taliban and al-Qaida last October but the Pentagon asked only for help from individual members, fearing it would have to wage war by committee as it did in Kosovo in 1999.

Immediately after the terrorist attacks of September 11 Nato invoked its mutual defence clause - stating that an attack on one member was an attack on all - but it was not asked to take part in combat operations.

George Robertson, the British secretary general, has been struggling ever since to prove that Nato still has uniquely useful skills.

France dropped its initial objections to a Nato role in Afghanistan, diplomats said.

Isaf is made up of 5,000 troops from 12 countries.

Nato's decision to extend the life of its Macedonian mission underlines the difficulties faced by the EU in organising its own defence operations.

EU governments had hoped to take over from Nato next month but have been prevented from doing so by a row with Turkey and disagreements between EU member states, notably Britain and France.

Turkey's agreement is needed because, as a Nato member, it has to grant the EU's fledgling rapid reaction force access to alliance assets. But it has refused to do this, linking it to a deal on Cyprus, one of the 10 countries to be invited to join the EU at next month's Copenhagen summit.

Turkey is demanding a date to start membership negotiations and is unlikely to make any concessions on the EU military force before it gets one.

France, keen on pushing autonomous European defence efforts, had suggested the EU could take over in Macedonia without Nato support. Britain and Germany rejected that.

Little information was available about the Chinese approach to Nato last month, but it is clearly linked to the alliance's intensifying links with central Asia.