Video Background Briefing

Hello this is James Appathurai the NATO Spokesman in the latest in our series of regular briefings on NATO and its current agenda. Let me begin with our number one priority and that is Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has just achieved an historic success, the presidential elections where some eight-plus million people including forty percent of the women eligible to vote have cast their ballots in the most significant election in Afghanistan's history. This is a true success for Afghanistan, for the international community and we believe also for NATO.

NATO played its part in providing security in Kabul, in the capital, and in the north where NATO's Provincial Reconstruction Teams helped to provide security. During this very, very significant period NATO deployed extra troops, extra equipment during the election period and now that that period has come to an end some of those troops and some of that equipment is redeploying back to NATO countries.

But of course this historic success does not mean that we have come to the end of the road, on the contrary, we must now look forward and that's exactly what NATO countries are doing and they're looking forward in three ways.

One is to look beyond expansion to the north which has already been accomplished to now look at expansion into the west and then in future into the south. What we call Stage Two and Stage Three.

In other words, NATO wants to take Provincial Reconstruction Teams under its wing in the west of the country; the key to this is Herat. Herat is a city which would provide the, what we call the forward support base, the hub from which the spokes of the PRTs can spring.

NATO countries are now looking very seriously at which country will provide what is necessary to the forward support base to be put in place and then for the new Provincial Reconstruction Teams to come under NATO's wing as we look forward to that expansion.

At the same time the Alliance is also looking forward to the next stage of the elections and that is the National Assembly elections what some have called the parliamentary and municipal elections. These will take place as I said in the spring of next year and NATO has committed to provide security for those elections as well. This will be a major endeavour in some ways more complex even than the presidential elections because they will take place at more levels and therefore will require certainly very significant amounts of security assistance from the international community.

So of course discussions are already beginning within the Alliance on what kind of support NATO should provide, what kind of resources that will require and which nations will provide it. But one thing is certain; NATO will certainly provide security assistance during next spring's National Assembly elections.

But next spring is also not the end of the road, this is a long-term engagement by NATO and what will be a long-term project for Afghanistan and for the international community helping Afghanistan build a secure future for herself so that she can contribute to security in her region and beyond and provide safety and prosperity for Afghanistan's citizens.

That is why NATO has agreed... NATO nations have agreed, a long-term rotation plan for command of the International Security Assistance Force, NATO's peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan, through to 2007. A long-term engagement for a long-term endeavour. NATO also has a long-term rotation plan for running the airport, Kabul International Airport. This demonstrates that NATO is in for the long run and the Alliance will play its role well into the future.

Let me turn now to another major area of endeavour for NATO, the training mission to support the Iraqi Security Forces. As you know, those of you who have followed these briefings in the past, NATO is in the process and has agreed to set up a training academy just outside of Baghdad, training has already begun, there are some 60 NATO personnel doing high level headquarters level training for Iraqi security officials in Baghdad but NATO is preparing to do much more.

The Alliance has already provided training, also for Iraqis, outside of the country first in Stavanger, in the Joint Warfare Centre in Norway, where slightly less than 20... 19 senior Iraqi officials have been provided training on a whole host of areas necessary for high level commanders and high level civilian officials as well.

The NATO School in Germany is also providing training to slightly lower-ranked but still senior Iraqi officials and here in NATO Headquarters is a Training and Equipment Coordination Centre which is working with a similar cell in Baghdad and the role of this Centre is very simple. It is to coordinate the requirements of the Iraqi government for training and equipment with what is on offer by NATO and where appropriate by NATO nations as well.

So this cell here in NATO Headquarters is doing something that NATO has done for many, many years: it's to bring together the many contributions of Allies into a coherent whole and make the sum greater than the totality of the parts.

That work has already begun, it's being led by a U.S. Marine and it will deepen over time as the Alliance takes a greater and greater role in providing security assistance for Iraqi Security Forces.

Let me now turn to a major trip by the Secretary General, a major visit and that is the visit the Secretary General has made to the United Nations in New York. This is certainly not a frequent occasion. While NATO and the U.N. have very good, very profound and very trusting relations in the field, particularly in the Balkans, where for many years the two organizations have worked very much hand in hand; at the strategic level relations haven't been quite as deep.

And this Secretary General of NATO, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, wants to see those relations deepen at the strategic level as well and that's why he's gone to New York, he has had very good, profound discussion with the U.N. Secretary General on all the issues relevant to NATO-U.N. relations and in particular how the two organizations can work more closely together, how the U.N. can support NATO and how NATO can support the U.N. in taking on missions which increasingly... where increasingly the pattern has been that NATO and the U.N. work hand in hand.

And we've seen this in Bosnia, in Kosovo, but we've also seen it in Afghanistan. This is the way of the future and it only makes sense for the strategic level relationship between the two organizations to deepen. That's exactly what this Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is promoting with his visit to the U.N. Secretary General, U.N. New York, and I'm sure we will see those relations continue to deepen in future.

Let me look ahead now to early December because there are two major events on NATO's calendar which may well take place before I have an opportunity to update you once again. One is on December 2nd, the handover ceremony where in Bosnia-Herzegovina where NATO will bring SFOR to a successful conclusion, the stability force which has been in Bosnia-Herzegovina for almost nine years... more than nine years indeed and where the EU Force, EUFOR, will take on new responsibilities... peacekeeping responsibilities in the country.

The Alliance of course will retain a role as I have discussed in previous briefings. NATO will have a headquarters in Sarajevo led by a one-star general, NATO will still have responsibility for assisting in defence reform, helping Bosnia-Herzegovina move closer to NATO, move closer to partnership for peace and the Alliance will still have a role in supporting the apprehension of those indicted for war crimes.

The EU too will have a role in this and of course the lead responsibility will rest with the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina as it rests with all governments but NATO like the EU will play a supporting role and of course NATO wherever it can, and wherever appropriate will support the European Union as it takes over this major mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Finally, let me now turn to the upcoming formal Foreign Ministers meeting that will take place in early December. This will be the first formal meeting of NATO ministers since the NATO Summit in Istanbul. By a formal meeting I mean a meeting where formal decisions are taken, we have had informal meetings where ministers gather and have very free flowing and open discussions on issues but without having to take formal and concrete decisions. This will be a formal meeting where concrete progress is made on key and specific issues.

There will be a whole host of issues that will have to be addressed of course deepening the relationship for example with the Mediterranean dialogue countries, opening a channel of discussion to the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative countries principally we're beginning with the Gulf, of course we will have to look forward to the future of operations in Kosovo and in Bosnia, to the future of the operations in Afghanistan, to the future of the mission in Iraq, assessing where we are going and where we should go.

Of course there will be also a meeting with the Russian Federation, Foreign Minister Lavrov will come to join his NATO colleagues here and of the NATO-Ukraine Commission where the Ukrainian Defence Minister... er Foreign Minister, excuse me, will also come to meet with his counterparts here. This will be a relatively short meeting by NATO standards, it will all be done in one day according to current plans but it will be a very full and very intense agenda of progress.

There was a lot of work assigned to NATO by Heads of State and Government in Istanbul, this will be the first time to take that work forward concretely, with active decisions and the Foreign Ministers will certainly do that.