Strasbourg, France  - NATO leaders meeting in Strasbourg on Saturday resolved a potentially embarrassing rift by picking Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the alliance's new secretary general, outgoing NATO head Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said.

"Every state and government believed that Anders Fogh Rasmussen was the man to lead NATO and the 28 members through the 21st century," said de Hoop Scheffer, who is to step down on July 31.

Turkish opposition to Rasmussen had threatened to overshadow a summit celebrating the 60th anniversary of NATO's founding.

Brussels  - European members of NATO must not slacken their military efforts in the struggle against the radical Islamic Taliban in Afghanistan, outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Monday.

"Afghanistan is not US President Barack Obama's war. It's our war, the international community's," de Hoop Scheffer said in Brussels during an interview.

Kabul - NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Wednesday that restrictions on troop deployment by some European nations hinder the alliance in Afghanistan.

During a three-day visit to the country, Sheffer admitted that he had been unable to convince some NATO countries to relax restrictions on troop movements.

Islamabad, Jan. 22 : NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer held talks with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Islamabad on Thursday on regional issues such as security along the Afghan border.

De Hoop Scheffer is also expected to meet Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, the Dawn quoted official sources as saying here.

NATO leads the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), made up of more than 51,000 troops from nearly 40 countries, which is assisting Afghan government forces in the fight against the Taliban.

Valencia, Spain - Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), said Tuesday that the alliance should re-evaluate its relations with Russia without severing them.

The relations should be reconsidered after Russia's "disproportionate" use of force in Georgia, but not broken because they were a "strategic asset," Scheffer said at the
54th annual meeting of the NATO parliamentary assembly.

Tallinn- NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer restated the military alliance's desire to see Ukraine join its ranks at a high-level conference being held in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, on Thursday.

In his opening speech, de Hoop Scheffer said the talks were taking place at a special moment in NATO-Ukraine relations.