NATO's summit communiqué in Bucharest in April announced NATO's readiness to "provide a capability to assist allied nations, upon request, to counter a cyber attack".

Any completed act of communication, from a conversation between two people to a summit communiqué beamed by world leaders round the globe, involves (to quote an old formulation)'a sender, message, medium and receiver'.

The summit communique, however, was not entirely clear on the matter.

"The market is not likely to react strongly to the summit communique," said analysts at Salomon Brothers Inc. in the latest issue of the International Market Roundup.

At French insistence, though, a summit communique urging peace talks ommitted any reference to the Islamic Salvation Front as a partner in negotiations.

Several senior European officials said that the importance of the lengthy environmental declaration was not in its specifics but rather in having the issue so solemnly enshrined in a summit communique for the first time.

In the summit communique, NATO softened the wording to say "NATO remains ready to form the core of such an international military force."

The summit communiqué "welcome[d] trends in Iran to improve and develop its relations with GCC member states" but noted that there would have to be "serious work to settle differences".

The initiative came in a separate statement from the main summit communiqué, which saluted the Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation and called for no new relations with Israel.

Participants in the political dialogue at ministerial level, which took place in Malawi, were able to finalise the summit communiqué, the declaration of Tripoli, and the joint action plan for 2011-2013.