US President George W. Bush will ask a NATO summit next week to establish a partnership between the Atlantic alliance and five key allies, including Japan, Australia and South Korea, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Under-secretary of State Nicholas Burns said the "global partners" proposal, also involving Sweden and Finland, would expand the reach of the 26-nation alliance beyond its traditional boundaries.
"This will have NATO reach out to Australia and to Japan and to South Korea and to Sweden and Finland, the five countries that most prominently train with us, exercise with us in NATO and deploy in the Balkans and Afghanistan with us," Burns said.
Burns noted that the three Pacific nations are not seeking NATO membership.
"But we seek a partnership with them so that we can train more intensively, from a military point of view, and grow closer to them because we are deployed with them," he said.
Australia, South Korea and Japan have all contributed troops to operations in Afghanistan and the Balkans as well as in Iraq.
"I think the foreign ministers of each of these countries have visited NATO headquarters outside of Brussels in the last two years to make the case for a closer relationship," he said.
Burns said Bush would present the "global partners" proposal as a "priority issue" for the United States at the November 28-29 summit in Riga.
"We believe NATO will agree to this program of global partnerships," he said.