BRUSSELS, Dec 16: NATO and the European Union on Monday formally sealed a cooperation pact that will allow EU peacekeepers to deploy for the first time, with Macedonia first in the 15-nation bloc’s sights.

The accord was adopted in a joint declaration by NATO Secretary-General George Robertson and the European Union’s high representative for foreign relations, Javier Solana.

“The EU-NATO declaration today is a vital milestone in the history of the NATO-EU strategic partnership,” Robertson told reporters.

“What we’ve done today is to lay the foundation of a permanent framework from the European Union and NATO in support of peace and stability.”

Solana said the NATO enlargement summit in Prague last month and last week’s EU summit in Copenhagen, which agreed to welcome 10 mostly ex-communist countries in 2004, had “changed the landscape of Europe”.

“At the same time, today we have finalised a very important agreement between the European Union and NATO that will allow one of the most important projects that the European Union has now,” said Solana, who led NATO before Robertson.

The long-awaited pact was agreed on Friday by EU leaders meeting in the Danish capital and by NATO, after pivotal Alliance member Turkey overcame its objections despite failing to secure a firm date to launch EU membership talks.

The deal had been agreed in principle in October but the EU’s planned deployment of peacekeepers in Macedonia was postponed twice pending agreement with Turkey to share NATO resources, especially heavy-lift aircraft.

After Turkey finally gave the go-ahead, the EU said it was ready to send its troops into Macedonia “as soon as possible”, probably in February, and was also willing to deploy soldiers in Bosnia to replace NATO forces in both countries.

The EU-NATO declaration included a section outlining “respect for the principles of the Charter of the United Nations” and the obligation for one country not to indulge in unilateral military action.

Robertson said this “has to do with elements of Greek-Turkey relations and should not be seen in any wider context than that”, such as any US action against Iraq.

Perennial rivals Greece and Turkey held up the deal for months by seeking assurances that any EU peacekeeping force would not use NATO assets to meddle in the eastern Mediterranean, in particular in the divided island of Cyprus.

“It’s very important that we bring together the particular concerns of Greece and Turkey in relation to the Aegean,” the NATO chief added.

The dithering over deployment of peacekeeping forces has gone to the heart of the EU’s faltering three-year-old drive to build a common European Security and Defence Policy.

France wanted the bloc to go it alone in Macedonia without using NATO resources but other EU states, notably Britain, were pushing for a partnership with the US-led military alliance.

But now with the NATO agreement in the bag, the EU can get planning seriously to replace the Alliance’s 900-strong force in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia and eventually the NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia.

The EU is also trying to put together next year a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force that would be ready to tackle humanitarian and peacekeeping missions which NATO prefers not to join.

Robertson said NATO would need time to analyse the EU offer to replace SFOR.

“It’s a very large, very complex operation and we’re obviously going to look now in great detail at what the offer means, what the significance is,” he said.

“But we’ll do it very quickly. Given that we’ve got this new framework, it will be much easier to make that assessment.—AFP