As the Nato summit drew to a close on April 4 2009, it was announced at a news conference that Denmark's Anders Fogh Rasmussen had been appointed as secretary general to succeed Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

The news came after hours dominated by diplomatic efforts by some European leaders to persuade Turkey to allow the candidacy of Rasmussen to be the next secretary-general of Nato to go ahead.

Ankara earlier publicly objected to Rasmussen because of the episode in which some Danish media published cartoons seen as offensive to the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

"Why should Turkey agree on a candidate today? Yesterday the (Turkish) prime minister spoke about it and we are sticking with that idea," Reuters reported a Turkish official as saying earlier on April 4 after Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had a long telephone call with his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan.

French news agency AFP quoted European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn as saying on April 4 that Turkey’s opposition to Rasmussen’s bid was bad for Ankara's EU membership aspirations.

The closing news conference was told by French president Nicolas Sarkozy that Rasmussen's appointment had been made unanimously.

The intention of Nato leaders had been to decide on April 3 on a candidate to succeed Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. April 4, set aside for ceremonial to mark the military alliance’s 60th anniversary and discussions on issues topped by Afghanistan, instead saw further discussions about the future secretary-general.

The BBC said that on April 3, US president Barack Obama called for a more effecitive use of Nato resources in Afghanistan and underlined the threat posed by militants.

Speaking after talks in Strasbourg with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Obama said: "It is probably more likely that al-Qaeda would be able to launch a serious terrorist attack in Europe than in the United States because of proximity.

"This is not an American mission, this is a Nato mission, this is an international mission."

The BBC said that UK prime minister Gordon Brown offered a temporary increase in British troops serving in Afghanistan. The UK currently has 8300 soldiers in the country, the second-largest international contingent of troops after the US.

Twenty-eight countries took part in the Nato summit after, on April 1 2009, Albania and Croatia became fully-fledged members.

Not all the ceremonial went to plan. On April 4, leaders made a symbolic crossing of the Two Banks Bridge on the Rhine river between the German city of Kehl and the French town of Strasbourg. However, Berlusconi missed the occasion, reportedly because he was on the phone to his Turkish counterpart to try to persuade Ankara to accept Rasmussen.

Also on April 4, according to a report by Sky News, French police fired tear gas at people demonstrating against the Nato summit in Strasbourg. The skirmishes between police and protesters coincided with France's return to full Nato membership.

US first lady Michelle Obama and other spouses of NATO nation leaders cancelled a visit to a French cancer hospital at the last minute for security reasons, the French president's office said, as police clashed with protesters.

De Hoop Scheffer told the closing news conference that it had been an "excellent summit". It had been agreed that the 1999 strategic concept for Nato would be revisited with a view to being updated by the next Nato summit, he said.

In the final days before the Nato summit, little was heard of the campaign around Bulgarian candidate for secretary-general, former foreign minister Solomon Passi.

However, Bulgaria – which joined Nato in 2004 and sent a delegation to the 60th anniversary summit led by President Georgi Purvanov and including Passi – held a number of events to celebrate its connection to Nato.

On April 4, flag-raising ceremonies were held at the headquarters of the Bulgarian military General Staff and the regional staffs of the Bulgarian military, as well as at Bulgarian military units to mark the 60th anniversary of Nato and the fifth anniversary of Bulgaria's accession to Nato, Bulgarian news agency BTA said.

Bulgarian media continued their support for Passi’s candidacy on April 4.

An article in mass-circulation daily 24 Chassa on April said that the Nato 60th anniversary summit would see the start of major and profound reforms, and said that Passi was the person to cope with this task in an impressive way.

Passi, the story said, was a proven and active man of vision with enormous international experience, a network of contacts across the world, a consensus figure, and most of all a strong leader, according to Bulgarian former president Zhelyu Zhelev and Lyubomir
Ivanov, president of Bulgaria's Atlantic Club.

In an interview with Bulgarian weekly Kapital, Passi said that he "had to participate" as a candidate to be Nato secretary-general.

Bulgaria had been the first country to raise the issue of leaving for the Warsaw Pact for Nato and the expansion of the Western military alliance eastwards.

Had he not participated, it would have been asked why he got frightened and he would have had no answer, Passi was quoted as saying.

On April 3, Bulgaria’s Parliament adopted a declaration marking Nato’s 60th anniversary.

According to a report by Bulgarian National Radio, MPs expressed commitment to the common values shared by all Nato allies and reiterated its involvement in the parliamentary dimensions of Nato’s work.

The Bulgarian Parliament expressed the belief that the process of Nato enlargement to the east would contribute to the "full and enhanced integration of the entire Balkan region into the alliance structures".

Bulgaria’s MPs reiterated their support and commitment to Nato priorities, with Afghanistan in first place. The declaration voiced hope that Nato-EU relations would reach a new level of effective co-operation.