At a press conference after the afternoon session of the North Atlantic Council meeting, the NATO chief said: "It is a matter of enormous consequence for this alliance and therefore people are taking it very seriously indeed."

"NATO nations again discussed the concerns raised by Turkey regarding its security. Allies listened to a presentation by General Harald Kujat, the chairman of the Military Committee, on the nature of the threat faced by Turkey," he added.

He described the Turkey concerns as "legitimate" and "real."

Most NATO countries reiterated the urgency for NATO to take a decision, but "we are not yet at the stage where we can achieve consensus and arrive at a decision," he noted.

Robertson said that the military alliance would continue to work hard to achieve such a consensus within the shortest possible time.

Robertson invoked the "silence procedure" on the Iraq issue last week, and the "silence" was broken by France, Germany and Belgium on Monday morning, plunging the military alliance into its most serious crisis ever since its founding 54 years ago.

US Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns said that the US government would go ahead bilaterally with some allies in providing military support for Turkey if NATO cannot reach consensus on the issue in a short time.

(Xinhua News Agency February 11, 2003)