Nato ships for five-day visit

Standing Nato Maritime Group 1, consisting of one destroyer and four frigates from five Nato nations, are expected to visit Malta between tomorrow and Friday.

The vessels are the Flagship HMCS Athabaskan (Canada), the FGS Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany), the USS Simpson (US), the NRP Vasco da Gama (Portugal) and the ORP General Kazimirix Pulaski (Poland).

The Pulaski is the first Polish military vessel to join one of the Nato Standing Maritime Groups outside of an exercise.

The Canadian, Portuguese, German, and Polish ships will be open to the public at Pinto Wharf tomorrow.

Nato's Maritime Group 1 is under the command of Commodore Denis Rouleau, of the Canadian Navy.

Group 1 is a multi-national naval squadron that gives Nato the ability to respond quickly, and with flexibility, to a crisis.

The force is one of four maritime standing elements that would be attached to the newly formed joint Nato Response Force in times of crisis. It is well prepared to deal with a wide variety of missions including non-combatant evacuations, disaster relief, counter-terrorism and crisis response.

Standing Nato Maritime Group 1 arrived in the Mediterranean on Wednesday after having completed training exercises in the Baltic and North Sea with the Danish and Norwegian navies.

The Group's purpose in the Mediterranean is to provide added support to Operation Active Endeavour, one of Nato's responses to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

As part of Operation Active Endeavour, the Force conducts regular surveillance and monitoring of shipping in the Mediterranean.

It has hailed more than 76,500 vessels since the beginning of the operation in 2001 and has conducted almost 100 boarding operations.

Additionally, it escorted over 500 merchant ships through the Strait of Gibraltar between March 2003 and May 2004.