COPENHAGEN - Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen confirmed Friday that he is a candidate for NATO secretary-general, ending weeks of speculation about whether he would seek the alliance's top job.
The 56-year-old Dane infuriated some Muslims by speaking out in favor of freedom of speech during an uproar over a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2006. He has also angered Turkey by opposing its membership in the European Union.
"On this issue, we don't want NATO to be weakened," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a news conference at the Chatham House think tank in London.
Erdogan has criticized Fogh Rasmussen for his unwillingness to stop broadcasts by a Kurdish satellite television station, Roj TV, which Turkey accuses of putting out propaganda for Kurdish rebels.
"NATO is an organization whose duties are to ensure peace," Erdogan said. "But the mouthpiece of the terror organization in my country is broadcasting from Denmark, I have written to Mr. Fogh Rasmussen four years ago but he did not do anything."
Erdogan also criticized Fogh Rasmussen's attitude during the crisis over the publication of the Prophet cartoons.
"How those who made no contribution to peace at that time, can contribute to peace now?" Erdogan said. "These are raising question marks."
"This is my personal opinion. I look at (his candidacy) negatively," Erdogan said.
President Abdullah Gul, who is representing Turkey at the summit, told reporters that "Turkey's view on the issue is unanimous."
Neither man said whether Turkey would veto Fogh Rasmussen's candidacy.
NATO leaders were expected to discuss choosing a new secretary-general at the two-day summit in France and Germany starting Friday. The Danish prime minister had been mentioned in speculation as a top candidate to replace outgoing secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, a Dutchman, but he had declined to comment on the subject.
Fogh Rasmussen told his Liberal party colleagues of his decision before he left for the summit, party spokeswoman Inger Stoejberg told Denmark's TV2 News.
Selecting Fogh Rasmussen also may be seen as unhelpful to NATO's efforts to rebuild relations with Russia.
Russia's ties with Denmark were badly damaged by the Danish refusal to extradite a top Chechen rebel envoy in the fall of 2002. Fogh Rasmussen's government also angered the Kremlin by refusing to cancel an October 2002 conference of rebels and rights activists in Copenhagen held just days after a hostage-taking raid on a Moscow theater.
Vladimir Putin, who was Russian president at the time, responded by canceling his scheduled trip to Copenhagen for a summit with the European Union. The November 2002 meeting was moved to Brussels.
If Fogh Rasmussen gets the NATO position, he will likely be replaced as prime minister by the center-right Liberal Party's deputy leader, Lars Loekke Rasmussen, who is Denmark's current finance minister. The two men are not related.
