"Terrorism and proliferation are global challenges," NATO's secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told the two houses of parliament. "To combat them, we require coalitions even bigger than NATO.

"That is why he have put forward new ideas on the future of Partnership: new ideas on combating terrorism and new ideas on enhancing cooperation with partners in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Hoop Scheffer, who is on a one-day trip to Romania, said radical changes in the security situation worldwide had forced NATO in recent years to contemplate significant reforms.

"One critical challenge is to improve the way we generate forces for missions such as Afghanistan," he said. "This means that the demand for our Alliance is likely to increase even further. But we cannot meet this demand if we stick to current force planning and force generation procedures."

The NATO chief, who did not mention Iraq during his speech, said he hoped to see results of this new approach by NATO's upcoming June 28-29 summit in Turkey.

"(...) I expect to see the first results of a new approach, which will underline that NATO remains an organisation that can match its political ambition with the right military capabilities," said Hoop Scheffer, who is expected in the Bulgarian capital Sofia later Thursday.

The NATO-led security assistance force (ISAF) in Afghanistan has about 6,500 soldiers from 29 countries.

The United Nations has approved an expansion of the force, which is currently limited to Kabul and the northern town of Kunduz, to other towns and provinces across the war-ravaged country.

But so far troops have been slow to arrive despite repeated appeals from the interim Afghan government and aid workers in the face of continued attacks by remnants of the Taliban Islamic militia and their Al-Qaeda allies.

The Bulgarian newspaper Trud reported Thursday that Hoop Scheffer, when questioned in an interview about a possible NATO mission in Iraq, replied that it would be up to Iraq's sovereign government to make an official request.

"We need to wait for the Iraqi sovereign government to make an official request for NATO involvement," he said. "It is up to the government in Baghdad to decide if it wants to ask for a multinational force and if this is the case, we need to know what form it will take, how NATO will participate and who will command it."

Romania and Bulgaria are among seven countries that joined NATO in March, bringing the alliance's membership to 26 states.

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