U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his counterparts from several other nations are expected to discuss nuclear proliferation, Iran and other international issues at a security conference next week in Canada, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 9).
Senior defense officials from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, New Zealand, the Netherlands and the United States are expected to meet from Sunday to Tuesday in Halifax at the first-ever Halifax International Security Forum.
Expected to be on the agenda at the closed-door sessions are the future of NATO, Pakistan, North Korea, China and the Middle East.
"The hope is that people will talk to each other and work out their differences on important security issues," said Will Bohlen, a spokesman for the German Marshall Fund, which is co-sponsoring the event with the Canadian government.
"Afghanistan, NATO, nuclear proliferation -- these are all perennial issues and will continue to be challenges for a long time," Bohlen said (Michael Comte, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Nov. 19).