NATO’s new man at the helm

Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s bid to succeed Dutchman Jaap de Hoop Scheffer as head of NATO finally succeeded at yesterday’s summit.  Up until the last minute, the Turks were refusing to sanction his appointment because of his refusal to apologise for a Danish newspaper publishing those Muhammad cartoons.
 
The Danish press is full of stories about the concession that had to be given before Ankara lifted its veto. These range from having a Turkish Deputy NATO Secretary-General (the post is currently held by an Italian) to the closure of a Kurdish TV station that broadcasts from Denmark to an extension of the deadline for easing travel by Greek Cypriots into Turkey. The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet is even claiming that Fogh Rasmussen will now publicly apologise for the publication of the cartoons depicting Muhammad by a Danish newspaper. How true any of this is remains unclear (the last one seems very unlikely).