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Bloomberg
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
By Gregory Viscusi
Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The European Union is urging nations
from outside the bloc to join the EU’s anti-piracy naval force
off Somalia, the fleet’s commander said.
“We are in talks with countries that want to contribute
that have the potential to double the size of the force,”
Admiral Philip Jones said today at a news conference in Brussels.
The EU yesterday formally approved Operation Atalanta, the
27-member organization’s first naval mission. The force will try
to supress piracy in an area more than three times the size of
France. Somali pirates have attacked about 120 boats in the
region this year, successfully seizing at least 40 vessels.
The negotiations on joining Atalanta include representatives
of Asian, Middle Eastern, African and non-EU nations in Europe,
Jones said. Japan was specified by Jones as being in the talks,
while Norway, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have said they may send
ships.
So far, the EU’s naval force will average six warships and
three maritime patrol planes, said Jones. Frigates from Britain,
France and Greece are already in place, soon to be joined by
German and Italian gunboats. French and Spanish planes are at the
French military base in Djibouti.
Indian and Russian naval patrols in the area are unlikely to
join the mission, though they will coordinate their activities
with the EU fleet, Jones said. “They have different mandates,” he
said
Jones, 48, a rear admiral in Britain’s Royal Navy, will
command the force from Northwood, near London, while the ships
and planes will use the French facilities in Djibouti as their
base.
The pirates operate along Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast, as
well as in the Gulf of Aden, a transit point for the 20,000 ships
a year that use the Suez Canal.
Among the ships the pirates are holding are a Ukrainian
cargo ship with T-72 tanks and a Saudi tanker with 2 million
barrels of oil.
SOURCE: Bloomberg, Tuesday, December 09, 2008