NATO Summit: Prepares Road Map, Joint Exit Strategy for Afghanistan

The two-day summit of the 28-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was held in Chicago, first on the US soil in more than a decade. Approximately 60 world leaders, including presidents of the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan have gathered to attend one of the biggest NATO summits in history. Despite a myriad of issues facing the 63-year-old organization founded in the wake of the Second World War as it confronts shifting 21st-century realities, the Chicago summit is set to be dominated by Afghanistan.

The Chicago summit was significant as President Barack Obama has announced that all combat operations led by the US forces will cease in the summer of 2013 and the NATO forces would move to a “support role.” The summit aimed at charting out a road map of international support to Afghanistan and prepare a blueprint for a joint exit strategy.

Afghanistan War

NATO allies declared that the end of a long and unpopular Afghanistan war is in sight even as they struggled to hold their fighting force together as France’s new President announced plans to pull troops out early.

The fate of the war is the centre of the two-day NATO summit that opened in Chicago. The alliance already has one foot out of the Afghanistan door, with the Europeans pinching pennies in a debt crisis and President Obama with an ear attuned to the politics of an economy-driven presidential election year.

Still, some cautioned against following France’s example while others played down stresses in the fighting alliance.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said: “There will be no rush for the exits. Our goal, our strategy, our timetable remain unchanged.”

The military alliance is pledged to remain in Afghanistan till 2014, but will seal plans during the summit to shift foreign forces off the front lines a year faster than once planned.

Afghan forces will take the lead throughout the nation next year, instead of in 2014. The shift is in large part a response to the plummeting public support for the war in Europe and the United States, contributors of most of the 130,000 foreign troops now fighting the Taliban-led insurgency. A majority of Americans now say the war is unwinnable or not worth continuing.

Tough Time Ahead

The US president, who was hosting the summit in his hometown and the city where his reelection operation hums, spoke of a post-2014 world when “the Afghan war as we understand it is over.” Until then, though, remaining U.S. and allied troops face the continued likelihood of fierce combat.

Obama said: “We still have a lot of work to do and there will be great challenges ahead. “The loss of life continues in Afghanistan and there will be hard days ahead.”

In fact, the strategy has shifted many times over the course of more than 10 years of war, and the goal narrowed to objectives focused on the long-term security of the mostly Western nations fighting there. The timetable has also moved, despite the overall commitment to keep foreign forces in Afghanistan till 2014.

France’s Stand

Tension over newly elected French President Francois Hollande’s pledge to end his country’s combat mission two years early infused the meeting. German Chancellor Angela Merkel pointedly cited the credo of the allies in the Afghanistan war, “in together, out together,” and her foreign minister cautioned against a “withdrawal competition” by coalition countries.

The Taliban are urging nations fighting in Afghanistan to follow France’s lead and pull their international forces from the war this year.

The Chicago summit called upon all the other NATO member countries to avoid working for the political interests of the US officials and answer the call of your own people by immediately removing all your troops from Afghanistan,” the group said in a statement before the meeting.

Obama-Karzai Meet

Obama said that NATO envisions a decade of transformation after 2014, with the United States still contributing money and forces.

“What this NATO summit reflects is that the world is behind the strategy that we have laid out,” Obama said after lengthy talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. “Now it is our task to implement it effectively.”

Karzai said his nation is looking forward to the end of war, “so that Afghanistan is no longer a burden on the shoulder of our friends in the international community, on the shoulders of the United States and our other allies.”

Despite the stubborn Taliban insurgency, war-weary international forces are seeking to hand control of security to Afghan forces while withdrawing some 130,000 foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.

French Presidential Election: Hollande Defeats Sarkozy, Socialist Returns to Power

France voted in a presidential run-off election on May 6 that could see Socialist challenger Francois Hollande defeat incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy by capitalizing on public anger over the government’s austerity policies.

The election outcome will impact efforts to fight France’s debt crisis, how long the nation’s troops stay in Afghanistan and how France exercises its military and diplomatic muscle around the world.

Sarkozy, punished for his failure to rein in record 10 per cent unemployment and for his brash personal style, is the 11th successive leader in the euro zone to be swept from power since the currency bloc's debt crisis began in 2009.

Jubilant left-wingers celebrated outside Socialist Party headquarters and in Paris' Bastille square, where revelers danced in 1981 when Francois Mitterrand became France's only other Socialist president.

Sarkozy Voted Out

Fifty-seven-year-old Hollande voted in his electoral fief of Tulle, in central France. Live television coverage showed politician shaking hands and chatting with voters on his way into the polling station. He will take office from May 16.

Leftists were overjoyed to have one of their own in power for the first time since Socialist Francois Mitterrand was president from 1981 to 1995.

Sarkozy is the latest victim of a wave of voter anger over spending cuts in Europe that has ousted governments and leaders in the past couple of years.

In Greece, a parliamentary vote on May 6 was seen as critical to the country’s prospects for pulling out of a deep financial crisis felt in world markets. A state election in Germany and local elections in Italy were seen as tests of support for the national governments’ policies.

In France, with 95 per cent of the vote counted, official results showed Hollande with 51.6 per cent of the vote compared with Sarkozy’s 48.4 per cent. The turnout was a strong 81 per cent.

Fall of Strauss-Kahn

Even a year ago, few would have expected to see Socialist candidate Hollande packing his bags for a move into the Elysee Palace.

Former IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was seen as all but certain to be the Socialist candidate in the election, until his stunning fall from grace in May after sexual assault charges in New York.

At the time Hollande, a backroom deal-maker who led the Socialists for 11 years, was perhaps best known as the former partner of the party's telegenic 2007 candidate, Segolene Royal.

But he surged ahead during a US-style primary to beat rival Martine Aubry, appealing to the centre-left with with vows to be a consensus-builder, despite his only experience being as a local official in his adopted Correze region.

He has held an opinion poll lead over Sarkozy from the moment of his nomination and -- notwithstanding a few late surges in support for the incumbent -- never fell behind.

A protege of modernizing former European Commission Chairman Jacques Delors, Hollande is of the generation groomed under the only previous Socialist president, Francois Mitterrand, who left office in 1995.

Next Important Step

Hollande's clear win should give the self-styled "Mr Normal" the authority to press German Chancellor Angela Merkel to accept a policy shift towards fostering growth in Europe to balance the austerity that has fueled anger across southern Europe. His margin also positions the Socialists strongly to win a left-wing majority in parliamentary elections next month, vital to implement his plans for a swift tax reform.

If it wins that two-round election on June 10 and 17, the Socialist Party would hold more levers of power than ever in its

43-year history, with the presidency, both houses of parliament, nearly all regions, and two-thirds of French towns in its hands. Even before the results were declared, cheering crowds gathered at Socialist headquarters to acclaim the party's first presidential victory since Mitterrand's re-election in 1988.

Many waved red flags and some carried roses, the party emblem. In Bastille Square, flashpoint of the 1789 French Revolution and the left's traditional rallying point for protests and celebration, activists began partying two hours before the polls closed.

Hollande has promised more government spending and higher taxes - including a 75-per cent income tax on the rich - and wants to re-negotiate a European treaty on trimming budgets to avoid more debt crises of the kind facing Greece.

Hollande’s Life and Career Graph

Born in 1954 in the northern city of Rouen, Hollande was the son of a doctor with far-right sympathies and of a social worker.

His father later moved the family to Neuilly-sur-Seine, the posh Paris suburb where Sarkozy was also raised.

He was educated at the elite Ecole National d'Administration, where in 1978 he met Royal and the couple started a three-decade relationship.

In 1981, after Mitterrand swept to power, Hollande challenged Jacques Chirac -- who later became French president -- in his parliamentary fiefdom in the rural region of Correze, but lost.

Chirac, who once mocked Hollande as "less well-known than Mitterrand's Labrador", retains affection for his old rival and even said he would vote for the Socialist, though he later passed off his remark as a joke.

Hollande eventually won the seat in 1988 and was reelected in 1997, 2002 and 2007.

In 1997 he took over the Socialist Party leadership, a post he held until 2008 when he was replaced by former Labor Minister Aubry, also the daughter of his former mentor Delors.

Some had pushed for Hollande to take on Sarkozy in the 2007 race but Royal had already emerged as the leading Socialist nominee. The couple, who by then had four children, split before the vote but news of the break-up did not emerge until after Royal's defeat.

Hollande is now in a relationship with political journalist Valerie Trierweiler.

Concerns that Hollande was too mild-mannered and academic to take on Sarkozy disappeared as the race went on and he emerged as a tough campaigner, his speeches sprinkled with dry humor. His performance during the campaign's only face-to-face debate -- when he fended off an increasingly aggressive Sarkozy accusing him of "lies" and "slander" -- was particularly lauded.

Joachim Gauck Becomes German President

Seventy-two-year-old activist pastor Joachim Gauck became German president by an overwhelming majority on March 18, marking the first time a candidate from the former communist east will serve as head of state. It was the third presidential election in three years for Germany after the abrupt resignations of Gauck's two predecessors.
Gauck secured 991 votes out of 1,232 from a special assembly of MPs and other dignitaries. Seventy-three-year-old renowned Nazi hunter Beate Klarsfeld nominated as a protest candidate by a far-Left Party, attracted 126 votes while a candidate for the extreme right drew three.
Leader of Peaceful Revolution
Gauck is a former pastor who opposed East Germany’s then—communist regime and became head of a federal agency overseeing the files of the Communists’ ubiquitous domestic intelligence service after Germany’s reunification. Gauck helped drive the peaceful revolution that brought down communist East Germany and later fought to ensure that the public would be granted access to the vast stash of files left behind by the despised Stasi secret police after reunification in 1990. He oversaw the archive for the next decade.
Hard-Won Freedom
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who also grew up under communism, hailed Gauck's victory as a sign of how Germany had transformed in the approximately 23 years since the Berlin Wall fell.
Merkel gave her backing to the plain-spoken Lutheran pastor in February after then President Christian Wulff stepped down amid a flurry of corruption allegations dating from his time as a state premier. Wulff served only 20 months of his five-year term in office.
He had replaced Horst Koehler, a former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who bowed out after an uproar over comments he made appearing to justify using the military to serve Germany's economic interests.
Expectations are outsized for the new president, who has won a reputation across the country as an inspiring public speaker.
As a staunch Protestant like Merkel, he is keen to remind Germans that their hard-won freedoms carry weighty responsibilities with them -- a lifelong theme he has said he will take to the presidential palace.
Gauck himself warned scandal-weary Germans against seeing him as a redeemer, telling reporters the night he was nominated that they should not expect "Superman." He stressed again Sunday that he would "surely not be able to fill all expectations."
People’s Expectations
Expectations are outsized for Gauck, who has won a reputation across the country as an inspiring public speaker, albeit with a notorious touch of vanity. But as a staunch Protestant like Merkel, he is also keen to remind Germans that their hard-won freedoms carry weighty responsibilities with them -- a lifelong theme he has said he will take to the presidential palace.

German President Resigns, Successor To Be Elected on 30 June

Following President Horst Koehler's unexpected resignation on 31 May over fierce criticism of comments he made on Bundeswehr missions during a visit to Afghanistan on 22 May. The Federal Convention will elect his successor on 30 June.

Resignation Statement
Announing his resignation, Koehler said: 'I regret that my comments led to misunderstandings in a question so important and difficult for our nation. But the criticism has gone as far as to accuse me of supporting Bundeswehr missions that are not covered by the constitution. This criticism is devoid of any justification. It lacks the necessary respect for my office,' Koehler said in his resignation statement.

According to the German Constitution, the selects Federal Convention the federal president. The Federal Convention is Germany's largest parliamentary body, where all of the members of the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, are entitled to vote, as well as a corresponding number of representatives from the federal states. The federal president is elected by secret ballot, without a prior debate, and requires an absolute majority.

The ruling coalition, the Christian Democratic Union and the Free Democratic Party, will have 22 votes more than the required absolute majority. The exact number is not yet known as the diet of North Rhine-Westphalia has not yet been formed following the 9 May election there.

Election of New President
It has been that announced that the Federal Convention will meet on 30 June to elect a new president. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition is expected to hold the majority in the Convention, the opposition will have no way of opposing the government's choice. But Merkel has indicated they would try to find someone who would be accepted by government and opposition alike.

Bundesrat president Jens Boehrnsen from Bremen will be the acting president until the election of a new president.

German Chancellor's Visit to Turkey

German Chancellor Angela Merkel concluded her two-day visit to Turkey on 30 March. On the first day she held talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, discussing possible sanctions for Iran, Turkey's relations with the EU, and the controversial issue of Erdogan's proposal for Turkish high schools in Germany.

During her tour, German Chancellor Merkel also met with Turkish President Abdullah Gul, and State Minister and Chief Negotiator for EU talks Egemen Bagis in Ankara. On the second day, the German chancellor went to Istanbal, accompanied by Bagis and Tourism Minister Ertugrul Gunay.

Iran's Issue
As far as Iran's issue is concerned, the German chancellor said the international community may have to consider stronger measures. She said: "If Iran does not in the end show transparency over the question of nuclear energy, we must also consider sanctions."

Turkey has been developing its trade and political relations with Iran in recent years, and Erdogan said he was against the possible measures. He said: "We are of the view that sanctions are not a healthy path and that the best route is diplomacy."

Turkey's Possible EU Membership
Talking about Turkey's possible European Union (EU) membership, German Chancellor Merkel dropped the term privileged partnership, saying she had realized that it did not have a positive connotation in Turkey. In any case, the "open-outcome process" of talks first required a whole raft of issues to be resolved, among which Merkel highlighted Turkey's need to take account of the interests of Cyprus, she pointed out. Merkel assuranced her Turkish counterpart: "We are continuing with the entry negotiations."

The German chancellor rebuffed allegations from Turkey that Berlin had altered the "rules of the game" during the negotiations. Although former Federal Chancellor Adenauer had promised membership to Turkey in the 1960s, the present EU was not to be compared with the then European Economic Community, she argued. Erdogan responded that Turkey continued to expect "full membership." He welcomed the fact that the "environment chapter" of negotiations with the EU had now been opened. He believed that the relations between Germany and Turkey should serve as a model for other EU countries' relations with Turkey.

Opening of Turkish High Schools in Germany
During her stay, the German chancellor softened her stance against Turkish schools in Germany. She supported the existence of Turkish-language schools, pointing out that many schools were already teaching the language in Germany, and said such programs should be expanded.

However, she stressed that these programs should not serve as an excuse for Turkish immigrants to forgo the study of German. She said both languages should be taught, highlighting the importance of bilingualism and the integration of immigrants into German society.