The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a military alliance that operates on consensus, ended a messy internal conflict late Sunday and agreed to begin planning to defend Turkey if it is attacked by Iraq.

NATO Secretary General George Robertson expressed relief after Sunday's 13-hour session. "I am happy to announce that we have been able – collectively – to overcome the impasse we have faced for the past few days," Robertson said.

The dispute, described as one of the worst in NATO's 53-year history, was triggered by a U.S. request in January that the alliance should begin planning to defend Turkey if Iraq launched an attack on its neighbor in response to a possible American-led invasion of the country led by Saddam Hussein.

Military support detailed

Among other things, the United States wants the alliance to be prepared to provide airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft that would provide surveillance, Patriot missiles that would offer air defense, and special forces that would combat biological and chemical weapons.

Three alliance members -- Germany, France and Belgium -- resisted the proposal at first and then triggered the conflict last Monday by vetoing the U.S. request. All three maintained that such preparations would indicate that a war against Iraq was inevitable. After the vetoes were filed, Robertson launched a six-day campaign of closed negotiations aimed at filling the breach.

Robertson did two things to settle the matter.

First, he moved the issue from the alliance's highest body, the North Atlantic Council, to the Defense Planning Committee. This maneuver took one of the critics, France, out of the decision-making process. The French are a member of the alliance, but have not belonged to the formal military structure since 1966, when then-French President Charles de Gaulle withdrew his country to ensure that his troops would never fall under foreign command.

Second, he accepted an objection raised by Belgium. The Belgians wanted the alliance to acknowledge that it supported the United Nations' effort to settle the conflict peacefully. Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt explained his country's position over the weekend. "What our country primarily wants to prevent is that this decision would constitute the first step in the buildup to war," Verhofstadt said.

In explaining its change of position, the German government said the NATO decision did not represent a political signal to go to war. The decision "explicitly emphasizes that it involves a purely defensive measure aimed at protecting the alliance and the alliance member Turkey in particular," said Bela
Anda, the spokesman for Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Anda also pointed out that the alliance was supporting the U.N. efforts.

France, however, remained firm in its rejection of the planning. "Turkey is facing absolutely no threat whatsoever," French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said in a radio interview.

NATO solidarity stressed

At the end of the talks, Robertson announced: "Alliance solidarity has prevailed. NATO nations have assumed their collective responsibility towards Turkey, a nation at the moment under threat."

The U.S. ambassador to NATO also expressed his relief that the alliance had decided to come to Turkey's defense. "We worked very hard to make sure that our core alliance responsibility of reaching out to an ally in a time of crisis was secured," R. Nicholas Burns said.