Co-operation in Peace-Keeping : Seminar on Civil-Military relations in Peace-Keeping operations

A seminar on "Civil-Military Relations in Peace-keeping Operations" will take place in Athens from 5 to 7 October under the auspices of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) Ad Hoc Group on Co-operation in Peace-keeping. The EAPC brings together NATO Allies and members of NATO's Partnership for Peace for discussions and programmes on a wide range of European politico-security matters. Approximately 60 participants from NATO and Partner countries will attend the event.

The seminar, which is hosted by the Hellenic National Defence General Staff, will be opened by NATO's Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs, Ambassador Klaus-Peter Klaiber. In addition to presentations by national experts, key-note speeches will be delivered by representatives of international organisations, research institutes and Non-Governmental Organisations. Speakers include Ambassador Marton Kraznai, Director of the OSCE's Conflict Prevention Centre, Mr Hans-Peter Furrer, Director of Political Affairs of the Council of Europe, Ambassador Jacques Klein, Principal Deputy High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ms. Joan Corbett, Political Adviser to the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT).

The aim of the seminar is to identify the essential civil-military relationships which must be developed to ensure that all tasks of future multifunctional peace-keeping operations are addressed adequately. To this end, the seminar will review recent experiences from the point of view of the nations, international organisations, NGOs and academic participants. The discussion will be structured at three different levels of civil-military interaction: political/strategic, operational and field-level. The seminar will consider case studies of recent peace-keeping operations in Bosnia, Albania and Somalia. The discussion will focus on the "culture gap" emanating from the vastly different backgrounds of civil and military actors involved in multifunctional peace-keeping operations, and propose ways of overcoming this.