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ANALYSIS-East Europeans seek security gains by backing West
November 7, 2001
By Wojciech Moskwa

WARSAW, Poland (Reuters) - The formerly communist states of Europe hope their first anti-terror summit will help replace the old Iron Curtain with a security blanket of NATO membership and European Union enlargement.

In backing the U.S.-led war on terrorism, the 17 states at the summit Tuesday lobbied to complete their transition from Soviet satellites to fully fledged Western allies after a decade in an unstable no-man's land, tainted by Balkan conflict.

But declaration that eastern Europe has "joined the front line" of the anti-terror campaign, while warmly welcomed by President Bush, will cut ice with the West only if it is followed by creation of a credible security buffer.

Eastern Europe's international stock has fallen since Sept. 11, as Washington has found new allies to back its campaign to eliminate prime suspect Osama bin Laden and his Afghanistan-based al Qaeda network.

"The Polish message -- to export stability to the region -- has become less attractive following the warming of ties between Russia and the United States," said Janusz Reiter, head of the Center for International Relations in Warsaw.

"Suddenly Poland and its neighbors have less to offer, and this summit was an attempt to say: We can make a contribution. We can join the mainstream of world affairs."

PERSONAL TRIUMPH

The summit, the first of its kind in the region, was a personal triumph for Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who brought together leaders of diverse countries, some of which spent much of the past decade at war.

It also showed that shifts begun with the toppling a year ago of Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic -- now on trial at the Hague war crimes tribunal -- have accelerated rapidly since the September suicide plane attacks on the United States.

"The summit was a demonstration of will and unity, a declaration that old dividing lines have faded and that the region does not want to be bound by its collective past," said Jozef Oleksy, a former prime minister of Poland.

"These countries are undoubtedly moving toward normality and the West, albeit at different speeds," Oleksy, now head of parliament's European affairs committee, told Reuters.

But the event garnered little attention outside Poland.

"Let's not delude ourselves ... Tuesday's meeting organized by Kwasniewski was a good public relations initiative," Poland's leading daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, said in an editorial.

Leaders pledged to fight money laundering and drug trafficking, and improve border controls to prevent terrorists from using the region as a springboard to the West.

Bush, addressing the summit via satellite, pointedly said that terrorists were active in Eastern Europe.

"What matters is that these countries are not a leaky point in the cordon sanitaire and that they help to root out terrorism," Reiter said. "It's less spectacular than sending troops to Afghanistan, but perhaps more effective."

NATO INVITATIONS?

Commentators said it was too early to say whether vows of loyalty would translate into invitations to as many as nine countries seeking NATO membership at next year's Prague summit.

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined the Atlantic alliance in 1999. Hopes for a wide enlargement have been encouraged by signs that President Vladimir Putin is softening Russian objections to admitting former Soviet Baltic republics.

Belarus, and until recently Yugoslavia, have been the region's bastions of autocratic rule, but even they backed U.S. anti-terror efforts at the meeting Tuesday.

"Belarus considers itself as an integral part of the international anti-terrorist political coalition," said Ural Latypov, the head of the administration of President Alexander Lukashenko and the country's summit observer.

"We realize that in the current situation, the use of force in the fight against terrorism is a necessary self-defense measure," Latypov said.

Yugoslavia, target of NATO air strikes in 1999, also voiced support.

"The time has come for an efficient response aimed at suppression of crime and thereby the flow of finance and illegal traffic in arms," Yugoslav Prime Minister Dragisa Pesic said.

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