Over 700 delegates from almost 50 countries are arriving in Kraków for an informal meeting.
Over 700 delegates from almost 50 countries. Over 400 journalists registered. The numbers prove straight away that this is not just an informal meeting of NATO defence ministers. Later on this week the city of Kraków will go into total lock-down as much of the western world’s military top brass talk about the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which turns 60 this year. There are many reasons for calling the meeting now: NATO has a new role to play in Afghanistan and the region’s security, and the debate continues as to the Ukraine’s and Georgia’s entry to the alliance. And all this happening under the watchful eye of the Polish military police on the ground, as well as an AWACS aircraft scanning the Polish skies for any missiles that might be directed towards Kraków.
But there still is a hurdle to cross for Georigan entry, and that is to try and get all current members of NATO agree on the Caucasian country joining the club. NATO after all is only the sum of its parts: many seem sceptical about the country’s entry following the fiasco involving Polish president Lech Kaczyński last year, when he visited Georgia and was taken by President Mikhail Saakashvili to the border with Russia, where both of them were caught in some crossfire, either from the Russians or even the Georgians themselves as a means of provocation: this is mere speculation, but it is still not known who really fired those bullets back in November last year.
Click on the audio icon to listen to the report by John Beauchamp.