The United States said today it sought targeted help from individual allies in its war on terrorism but did not envisage collective NATO military action in response to the attacks on New York and Washington.
US Deputy Defence Secretary Mr Paul Wolfowitz won unanimous backing from NATO defence ministers for what Secretary-General Mr George Robertson called the measured American approach to the crisis.
European allies praised US President Mr George W. Bush for working patiently to build a global coalition to fight terrorism rather than lashing out hastily after the September 11th attacks
In a striking sign of new co-operation between former Cold War adversaries, Russian Defence Minister Mr Sergei Ivanov gave the ministers what one participant called a fact-packed 20-minute briefing on Moscow's view of the terrorist threat from Afghanistan.
Mr Ivanov told reporters they had a uniquely open and frank exchange on a challenge facing all states, and promised closer intelligence co-operation on terrorism with the West.
Mr Wolfowitz said many allies were already participating in what would be a sustained, multi-layered campaign, sharing intelligence, freezing financial assets and helping build a global coalition to isolate terrorists. He singled out Britain, France and Turkey.
"NATO's September 12th declaration that if the attacks were initiated from abroad, they would be considered an assault on all allies under Article V of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, was a very powerful basis for a variety of individual requests to individual countries," Mr Wolfowitz said.
"We think we had a collective affirmation of support with what they said with Article V. If we need collective action, we'll ask for it. We don't anticipate that at the moment," he said.
While Mr Wolfowitz sought to play down expectations of imminent or spectacular U.S. military action, he said Washington did expect its armed forces would play a role.
Mr Wolfowitz said there was no doubt Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network was involved in the attacks, which killed about 7,000 people.
Mr Robertson began the day calling a minute's silence in memory of the victims.
Ministers agreed that NATO's recently established WMD centre would study the risk of terrorist access to unconventional weapons and how to counter it, a NATO official said.