Macron and a possible veiled warning to Turkey
French President Emmanuel Macron has said that leaders of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) nations must unequivocally commit to the values and rules of the Atlantic Alliance ahead of next month's NATO summit.
This possible warning could be a veiled message to Turkey over the Eurasian country's recent actions regarding its position within the Western military alliance, particularly in the wake of Turkish expansionism in parts of the Middle East and North Africa and military overtures to NATO's political rival Russia, The latter situation made the United States uncomfortable because of possible military intelligence cooperation with Russia on the part of Turkey, which has one of the most prominent and powerful armies within NATO. Turkish-Russian cooperation led the United States to expel the country led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan from the F-35 fighter programme.
In this regard, Emmanuel Macron's famous statements embarrassing NATO just before the last summit in December 2019 are still remembered, when he lamented the "brain death" of the Atlantic Alliance, due to an alleged lack of US leadership under former President Donald Trump and Turkey's independent military operations in countries such as Syria or Libya.
Speaking to reporters in Paris on Friday alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Macron said leaders, including new US President Joe Biden, should openly discuss "cohesion" within NATO at their June 14 summit in Brussels. "That means being clear among ourselves about the values, principles and rules that underpin our Alliance," Macron said, as quoted by the AP.
Speaking to reporters in Paris alongside Jens Stoltenberg, Macron said the upcoming Atlantic Alliance summit in June "must provide political clarification" on its role and "strategic priorities".
"We want to revitalise the alliance and, for that, we need clarification, cohesion and responsibility," he said, adding that partners must be clear on the "values, principles and rules" governing the organisation. The comment could be interpreted as a clear message to Turkey, a nation criticised by the French president and other NATO leaders for taking unilateral military intervention without prior notice to its partners.
"Solidarity among allies is not simply a word that can mean anything at any time. It implies duties, responsibility towards each other. It implies that each ally is committed to respecting international law and clear rules of conduct," Macron said.
The French president said it is important that countries do not focus "on national interests that are contradictory to the security of other allies, as has been the case in recent years in Syria, the eastern Mediterranean, Libya, in the Caucasus". He also referred to the "interoperability of armaments, which is absolutely fundamental in NATO".
Macron did not expressly refer to Turkey, but the country presided over by Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been singled out by many media and analysts for its expansionist policy, intervening in the civil wars in Libya and Syria and carrying out energy exploration in the waters of the eastern Mediterranean, denounced by Greece, Cyprus and the European Union itself for violating the maritime borders of others.
For his part, Jens Stoltenberg said only that leaders would "strengthen our unity and solidarity" in the future. "This means consulting more in NATO on all issues that affect our security, reaffirming our core values and strengthening our commitment to collective defence, including through greater investment," the NATO secretary general said.
French President Emmanuel Macron has apparently changed his mind on NATO, the North Atlantic military alliance he called 'brain dead' in 2019.
Macron insisted on Thursday that France was seeking to "revitalise" its NATO alliance, still with a direct call for reform, but a far cry from complaints in 2019 that the alliance was almost "brain-dead". In this vein, Macron told The Economist that year that "what we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO".
