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Foreign
Ministers in Florence
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Foreign Ministers from NATO and Partner countries were in Florence,
24-25 May for the Alliance's Spring Ministerial meetings. On the first
day, NATO Foreign Ministers discussed issues on NATO's current agenda
and held a NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council with the Russian Foreign
Minister, Igor Ivanov. On the second day, NATO's new Partner -Croatia-
signed the Partnership for Peace framework document, making it the
46th country to sit around the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council table
in the afternoon. A NATO-Ukraine Commission meeting was also held
that day.
Defence Ministers from NATO and Partner countries will meet on
8-9 June at NATO HQ in Brussels.
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Dr. Alexander Yuschenko of the Kharkov State Polytechnic University
of Ukraine is awarded the Manfred Woerner Fellowship for the year 2000. |
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Spring
Session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly
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| Issues such as European defence, missile defence and defence budget
trends were discussed at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly's (NATO PA)
Spring meeting in Budapest, Hungary, 26-30 May.
Lord Robertson delivered a speech on the last day of the meeting
in which he outlined the outcome of the broad range of discussions
held at NATO's ministerial meetings in Florence last week and stressed
the NATO PA's role in helping parliamentarians and the public understand
these complex issues.
This Spring session prepares reports to be discussed at the NATO
PA's Autumn Session. Last year's meeting was held in Warsaw where
Kosovo dominated the discussions and the NATO PA relinquished its
previous name: the North Atlantic Assembly.
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Lord
Robertson's third visit to Kosovo
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| After having addressed the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Hungary,
NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson landed at Skopje airport in
the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (1) and travelled
on to Kosovo.
He visited different KFOR commands and met with Bernard Kouchner
as well military commanders and local officials. This is Lord Robertson's
third trip to Kosovo since he took up his functions last October.
1. Turkey recognises the Republic of Macedonia with its constitutional
name.
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A NATO-Partner
exercise in Northern Europe
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A military exercise involving 16 NATO and Partner countries is currently
taking place in Denmark and southern Norway (29 May-10 June). The
purpose of Cooperative Banners 2000 is to train naval, land and air
forces in planning and conducting out-of-area peace support operations.
The ability to conduct military operations together is of vital importance
to NATO and Partner countries. In one of the last phases of the exercise,
lessons learned will be noted so that inter-operability may be improved
in future operations.
Cooperative Banners 2000 is being led under NATO's Commander Joint
Command North based in Stavanger, Norway, and is part of a series
of exercises held under the same name. The last one took place in
1997.
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NATO
parliamentarians want dialogue with Duma
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At a meeting in Budapest on 29 May, the Standing Committee of the
NATO Parliamentary Assembly said it was willing to resume dialogue
with the Russian Duma. Relations had been interrupted during the Kosovo
crisis and previous attempts to get them back on track had been considered
premature by the Duma. But the recent resumption of Russia-NATO relations
at the highest level - including Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov's
participation in the ministerial level meetings of the Permanent Joint
Council and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council at Florence on 24
May - offer hope that the time may now be right.
The NATO Parliamentary Assembly (previously known as the North
Atlantic Assembly) was set up in 1955. It brings together 214 national
parliamentarians from the 19 NATO countries. Delegations from 17
parliaments in countries in central and eastern Europe, Ukraine
and Russia also take part in almost all the Assembly's activities.
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