The summit will take place in Istanbul in May 2004, a NATO official said. "This will be the first NATO summit in Turkey since 1957," Gul told reporters in Ankara.

The summit will see NATO's expansion from 19 to 26 members, welcoming seven countries - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria - invited to join at the last NATO summit in Prague last November.

The Turkish minister said the exact dates and venue of the summit would be determined later. Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952.

NATO was plunged into an unprecedented crisis in February after three anti-war countries - France, Germany and Belgium - blocked a Turkish request for NATO help to prepare for the Iraq conflict.

The crisis was eventually overcome by sidelining France to green light the Turkish deployment.

The Alliance's last summit launched NATO's transformation, accelerated by September 11, from a Cold War-era bloc to a global fighting force focussed on tackling terrorism.

In its first ever deployment outside its traditional European theatre of operations, NATO is to take over the International Stabilisation Forcein Afghanistan in August.

The Alliance is also helping Poland in deploying a multi-national stabilization force in Iraq, where Warsaw is to command one sector alongside the United States and Britain.

Gul added that leaders from 46 countries, including Russia, Ukraine as well as Central Asian countries, would attend the Europe-Atlantic Partnership Council meeting, which will take place on the sidelines of the NATO summit.

WAR.WIRE