DAVOS, Jan 22: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) plans to build up a security partnership with Israel and Arab states around the Mediterranean in a drive to bolster the 'war on terrorism' , new Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said on Thursday.

The plans, which could eventually lead to joint military training and exercises, are likely to play a prominent part at a summit of the US-led defence alliance in Istanbul in June, he said in an interview.

"It's clear that the Mediterranean dialogue is taken very seriously by Nato and by me. I will certainly invest personally in the dialogue with Israel and the other six partners and I would not be surprised if that were also an important element of the Istanbul summit," he said.

"Nato is clearly thinking about how to give the Med dialogue body," he said after meeting Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom at Davos, Switzerland. He acknowledged that Nato had had difficulty getting the dialogue first launched in 1994.

Nato diplomats said little had been achieved due both to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to the fact that most of the partner countries were not transparent democracies with civilian control over the military.-Reuters