PRAGUE, Nov 22: NATO leaders wound up a landmark summit on Friday reaching out to Central Asia while reassuring Russia that the alliance’s expansion into the former Soviet empire posed no threat.

At a first summit beyond the old Iron Curtain, the Western defence bloc invited new members to join, agreed to set up a new strike force and buy new equipment, and sought closer ties with ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, reshaping itself after 53 years to face new enemies in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks on the United States, told a lukewarm Russia that the former foes were now allies facing “a common threat”.

On Thursday, NATO invited Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia to join, a move which, in parallel with European Union enlargement, will erase political and economic fault lines that scarred Europe for half a century.

On Friday, the alliance signalled it also wanted to work more closely with Central Asian states.

US officials see this region, which sits with NATO under the 46-nation Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), as a new frontier to which the western alliance should extend its influence after embracing most of central and eastern Europe.

“The purpose of the partnership, as we see it, is to promote freedom and democracy, and to strengthen the security and stability of the Euro-Atlantic area,” the US president said.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson told a closing news conference that the summit had shown that 46 diverse nations — from as far apart as Vancouver and Vladivostok — were “united in partnership and cooperation”.—Reuters