Joint press point

President Kaljulaid, dear Kersti, it is a great pleasure and honour to welcome you once again to NATO headquarters.

And I really appreciate your strong personal commitment and interest in NATO. And I welcome the strong commitment, not only of you, but also of Estonia, and the highly valued contributions of Estonia to the Alliance. Because Estonia contributes in so many different ways to our Alliance.

You are leading by example because you spend more than 2% of GDP on defence. And that’s important when we try to also make sure that other Allies follow the example of Estonia.

You are a lead nation when it comes to cyber defences, you are hosting the Centre of Excellence for cyber in Tallinn. You have the cyber range and you will also soon host a big exercise, one of the biggest exercises in the world when it comes to cyber defence. So you are a key country for the Alliance on cyber.

Then we are also extremely grateful for your contribution to our mission in Afghanistan with troops, Estonian troops, serving in Afghanistan, making sure that Afghanistan doesn’t become a safe haven for international terrorists once again.

But also the fact that you are providing funds to finance the Afghan national security forces.

And all of these are examples of how Estonia is contributing to the Alliance.

Estonia’s support for NATO is strong and NATO’s support for Estonia is just as strong. Allied jets keep your skies safe. Allied ships patrol the Baltic Sea. And NATO’s battlegroups in the region prevent conflict and preserve the peace. In September, I visited the multinational battlegroup in Tapa. Meeting British, French, Danish and Estonian defence forces.  And I was impressed by their professionalism and also the way they have been able to work together and increased the interoperability of forces coming from different NATO Allied countries. And this demonstrates the unity of the Alliance. And it’s sending a very clear message, that an attack on one Ally will be regarded as an attack on the whole Alliance.

This is a commitment that has kept all NATO Allies safe for nearly 70 years.

And that is the core task of the Alliance, that is credible deterrence, strong defence because that’s the best way to prevent conflict and to preserve the peace.

So again, a warm welcome to you, it’s always great to see you and I thank you for Estonia’s great contributions to our Alliance.

Welcome.

Question 1: We have heard from Lithuania in the recent days from their army chief that they are planning to send possibly a unit of Special Forces to fight terrorism in Iraq. Has NATO asked the Baltic States to be more involved in fighting terrorism in the region and what do you think of the idea?

Secretary General: Yes, we have asked all NATO Allies to contribute more to the global fight against terrorism. We do that when it comes to Afghanistan and NATO is now increasing our presence in Afghanistan: that’s not a combat mission, but we do training and advising the Afghan forces because we believe that, perhaps the best weapon we have in the long run against the terrorism is to train local forces and to help them stabilize their own country. Then, we also asked NATO Allies to contribute – and let me add that I welcome that Estonia has contributes forces and troops to our mission in Afghanistan for so many years.  Then, we also asked NATO Allies to contribute to our activities and capacity building activities in Iraq. What we do there is what you call mobile training teams, we provide some training when it comes to military medicine, counting IED - or improvised explosive devices, and we help to build some capacity in the Ministry of Defence and the Joint Chief of Staff, help them to reform and organize the defence institutions and also do some maintenance of military equipment.

We are looking into what more we can do because we strongly believe that when ISIS is defeated we need to continue to make sure that Iraq is able to stabilize its own country, that Iraqi Government forces are able to do that and therefore training is also key in Iraq. And we have asked our Allies to help with those training activities. I would also like to thank Estonia for announcing that we are now looking into the possibility of sending an officer to what we call The Hub for the South in Naples, which is a new hub we have established to address many of the challenges we see in the south, including fighting terrorism. NATO has to be able to both respond to a more assertive Russia in the East but at the same time respond to all the instability, the terrorism you see to the South of our Alliance. All our Allies are into all these challenges together.

Question 2: Does NATO plan to hold any more NATO – Russia Councils this year? And how do you assess the work done so far this year in the NTV?

Secretary General: There are no plans for any NATO – Russia Council (NRC) meetings this year in addition to those we already convened, but we will continue the political dialogue in the NRC, and I expect new meetings to take place next year because NATO has clearly stated that we are in favour of a dual track approach to Russia, which is about strong and credible deterrence and defence, but at the same time a political dialogue with Russia. Because Russia is our neighbour, NATO doesn’t want a new Cold War, we don’t seek confrontation with Russia, but we have to send a firm and clear message that we are ready to defend and protect all Allies against any threats. That is the reason why we have increased our military presence in the east of the Alliance, with the battlegroups including in Estonia - that is the reason why we have increased the readiness of our armed forces to be able to reinforce if needed. I think that the NRC is one important tool for keeping the channels of political dialogue open and I regard the meetings we’ve had both this year and also in 2016 as useful. Dialogue with Russia is not easy but that is exactly why it is important.  We have addressed important and difficult issues like Ukraine, where NATO Allies have expressed clear and strong support for Ukraine, to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. And we have also discussed Afghanistan, and we have also discussed military transparency, risk reduction. We had reciprocal briefings on exercises. I strongly believe that we should continue this dialogue. For me, dialogue is not a sign of weakness, dialogue is a sign of strength. And as long as we make sure that we have credible deterrence and strong defence we should continue to also engage in political dialogue with Russia.

Question NTV Turkey: Last week, there has been a very unfortunate event or incident at a military exercise in Norway, during this Javelin Trident exercise, the use of the portrait of Ataturk as the founding father of Turkey has harmed a lot the Turkish citizen and Turkey in general. To that end, are you making a kind of investigation about how this happened and can you reassure Turkey and the Turkish public that this kind of incident will not reoccur in any kind of military exercise or within NATO. Thank you very much.

Secretary General: NATO military authorities are now investigating the details of what happened and they are also looking into procedures to make sure that something like this does not happen again. I phoned President Erdogan this weekend where I expressed my apologies for the incident and the offences caused. I also informed him that NATO took immediate action when those responsible in Norway became aware of what had happened. I also met with the Chief of the General Staff General Akar and the Minister for EU Affairs in Halifax this weekend. I expressed my apologies to both of them for the offences caused, but also reassured them that our military authorities are now looking into how to make sure something similar does not happen in the future. Let me also underline that Turkey is a key Ally. Turkey is contributing to the Alliance in many different ways. In the fight against terrorism, bordering Iraq and Syria but also by being a key Ally in what we now do in the Black Sea region, bordering Russia in the Black Sea. We highly value the contributions of Turkey to the Alliance and therefore we have to make sure incidents like these do not occur again.