US Defence Secretary Gates bilat with French Defence Minister

(25 Oct 2007) 1. Pan from military vehicles and plane on display to exterior of venue of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) meeting 2. Security guard outside venue 3. War plane, NATO member state flags in background 4. Roundtable meeting between US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, and French Defence Minister, Herve Morin and other officials 5. Close of Gates 6. Close of Morin 7. Gates and Morin shaking hands, Morin leaving, other officials shaking hands with Gates 8. Wide exterior of flags STORYLINE: US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, and French Defence Minister, Herve Morin, held talks on the sidelines of a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) meeting in Noordwijk on Thursday. Their meeting came days after Gates announced that Washington may delay activating the proposed missile defence sites in Poland and the Czech Republic until it has "definitive proof" of a missile threat from Iran. Morin said European allies generally agreed with the Americans that there is a ballistic threat, "but not necessarily on the imminence of the threat". The announcement was widely seen as an attempt to mollify Russian opposition to the US plan. Moscow says Iran is decades away from developing missile technology that could threaten Europe or North America, and claims the US bases will undermine Russia's own missile deterrent force. Russia and NATO nations are also divided over Kosovo. Moscow opposes a Western backed plan to grant the province internationally supervised independence from Serbia. While talks continue, Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority is promising to follow through on a threat to declare independence unilaterally in December if their is no settlement. NATO ministers on Wednesday agreed to maintain the alliance's 16-thousand peacekeepers in the territory. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...