The two-day NATO summit ended here on Saturday after leaders of the 28-member states agreed to appoint Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as new secretary-general of the military alliance.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (L) and Current NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer attend a news conference in Strasbourg, France, on April 4, 2009. Leaders of NATO member states managed to agree on Saturday to appoint Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as new secretary general of the alliance.

Incumbent Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a press conference that Rasmussen was chosen by “unanimity.”

Consensus was forged in a last-minute effort after Turkey dropped its opposition to the candidacy of Rasmussen, who outraged the Muslim world by defending the rights of a Danish newspaper to publish cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in 2006.

Heavyweight members of the alliance tried hard to persuade Turkey to support Rasmussen.

Leaders of the NATO member states discussed the topic on Friday night during the first session of the summit, but it ended without a result.

A candidate for NATO chief is nominated through an informal process, but it needs the endorsement of all member states. Rasmussen will take over from Scheffer of the Netherlands on August 1, 2009.

On Afghanistan, the summit agreed to give support to U.S. President Barack Obama’s new strategy, with some NATO allies pledging more resources to help root out extremists in the region. But most of the them declined to send more troops.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy supported the new policy in Afghanistan, saying France would offer more assistance in training Afghan military forces and police, but no extra soldiers would be sent.

Under the U.S. strategy, the United States will send 17,000 additional combat troops to Afghanistan, and 4,000 troops to help train the Afghan army and more civilian personnel to deal with problems such as the narcotics trade.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also supported Obama’s Afghanistan policy, but pledged no more than 600 military personnel to help train Afghan forces.

The leaders agreed to work on a new strategic concept to update NATO’s current one as it does not reflect the present day practices of the military alliance, including the mission in Afghanistan, a NATO spokesman said. But collective defence and security would be at the center of the new strategic concept, he said.

The members also had a common vision to cooperate with Russia, “a great European power,” the spokesman said.

He said they agreed that there were areas where cooperation would be mutually beneficial, but also recognized there were areas where NATO and Russia disagreed.

The members insisted that NATO’s desire to cooperate with Russia “does not mean NATO would compromise its core principles,” the spokesman said.

Before the second session of the summit opened on Saturday morning, the leaders held a symbolic ceremony to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the military alliance and honor soldiers who died in NATO missions over the years.

Led by Merkel, they gathered on a bridge over the River Rhine connecting France and Germany, the co-hosts of the two-day NATO summit, and walked toward the French city to meet Sarkozy in the middle of the bridge where they shook hands before proceeding to Strasbourg.

The ceremony was also meant to celebrate France’s return to NATO’s military command after it quit 43 years ago in pursuit of an independent defence policy.

Aux Morts, an anthem used by the French military to honor the dead, was played for NATO soldiers who died in missions and operations during the past 60 years.

The summit was held under tight security. About 15,000 German police and 9,000 French police were on duty.

As many as 25,000 to 40,000 protesters from across Europe held demonstrations, according to German and French authorities.

Police detained 25 protesters and dispersed some others with tear gas in a pre-dawn conflict before leaders held their second session of the summit on Saturday.

Another group of 200 French and German protesters were dispersed by tear gas and flash bombs from a central intersection in downtown Strasbourg. More than 50 were reportedly injured in the incident.

The demonstrators moved toward the center of Strasbourg to prevent the NATO delegates from arriving.

Nearly 2,000 demonstrators left their camp in the south of the city before dawn and made their way to the summit venue under the close surveillance of several police helicopters.

A planned visit by the spouses of the NATO leaders, including Obama’s wife Michelle, to a cancer hospital was cancelled due to security concerns, according to the French president’s office.

Even before the summit, demonstrators clashed on Thursday in Strasbourg’s south neighborhood of Neuhoff, leading to more than 300 arrests.

The summit was co-hosted by Strasbourg and the German towns of Kehl and Baden-Baden.

This was the first time that a NATO summit had been hosted by two countries.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet