| Israel has proposed extending its ties with NATO to include cooperation in areas such as fighting terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction, its envoy in discussions with the alliance said. The proposals do not include talk of Israeli membership of NATO or any role for the alliance in solving the Middle East conflict. But they are seen as a big step for a country which in the past has been wary of ties to multilateral institutions. "What Israel wants to see is to what extent NATO can give us a positive response," Oded Eran, the Israeli envoy to the European Union in Brussels, told Reuters late on Tuesday. "We want to see progress across a broad front," he said in an interview of proposals he presented recently to NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. |