French Defence Minister Morin comments at NATO meeting



(25 Oct 2007)
1. French Defence Minister, Herve Morin, sitting down for news conference
2. Reporters seated at news conference
3. SOUNDBITE: (French) Herve Morin, French Defence Minister:
“The President of the Republic has indicated to the Dutch Prime Minister that we will make an effort to provide one OMLT (Operational Mentor and Liaison Team), and not two as reported by the Dutch media, which will support the Dutch in that zone.”
4. Cutaway of cameraman
5. SOUNDBITE: (French) Herve Morin, French Defence Minister:
“The sign a country gives, and I said this to the Dutch as I would have told other countries as well, the sign that a country gives by reducing the number of its troops could be an extremely negative sign for the overall operation and to the countries currently involved in Afghanistan. We would run the risk of causing a domino effect; because the situation would become very difficult to sustain for a number of countries.”
6. Pan of sign
7. SOUNDBITE: (French) Herve Morin, French Defence Minister:
“(We have) clearly indicated to our allies that on the subject of anti-missile defence, in theory everybody agrees and acknowledges that there is an anti-ballistic threat. But we have to know whether this anti-ballistic threat is a threat in the short term, in the mid-term or in the long term. And regarding this point we would like to make our own evaluation, because we have not yet exactly established the same evaluation, not about the threat itself, but rather on how imminent the (anti-ballistic) threat is. And the second element is that all decisions on anti-missile shield defence can only be taken after an exercise conducted by us.”
8. Reporters seated at news conference
9. Morin leaving news conference
STORYLINE:
France on Thursday urged the Netherlands and other nations fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan’s dangerous south not to reduce their troops levels, but Defence Minister Herve Morin made clear Paris would not be sending combat units to help.
“I said this to the Dutch, as I could have said it to others, the sign that a country gives by reducing the number of its troops could be an extremely negative sign for the overall operation and to the countries currently involved in Afghanistan,” Morin told reporters.
“We would run the risk of causing a domino effect,” he added.
He spoke at a meeting of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) defence ministers where the Netherlands warned that public pressure could force it to pull its 1,600 troops out of the frontline province of Uruzgan next year, if they don’t get more support from other allies.
Morin said France would send a training unit to prepare Afghan army forces to help the Dutch and would continue to provide air support to NATO nations with troops in the south.
But he said France would not be sending combat troops to the southern region.
Morin also said that European NATO allies agreed with the US that there is a ballistic threat from Iran, but not “how imminent the threat is”.
His comments came after US Defence Secretary Robert Gates announced that Washington may delay activating the proposed missile defence sites in Poland and the Czech Republic until it has “definitive proof” of a missile threat from Iran.
The announcement was widely seen as an attempt to mollify Russian opposition to the US plan.
Moscow says Iran is decades away from developing missile technology that could threaten Europe or North America, and claims the US bases will undermine Russia’s own missile deterrent force.

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