Video background briefing

Hello. This is James Appathurai, the NATO Spokesman. This is the latest in our series of briefings on NATO's agenda and the way ahead for the coming weeks.
During the last briefing we looked ahead to the NATO Summit that took place at the end of June. Now we're beyond the Summit we look back to what the achievements of the Summit are, and I'll do that very quickly with you here today.

But our work here at the Headquarters is focused now on implementation, about taking the direction given to us by our Heads of State and Government and making it work, making it happen. And across a whole broad spectrum of initiatives we've already gotten straight to work .

There were three broad areas in which the Summit made substantial progress in terms of our operations, in terms of our partnerships and in terms of NATO's transformation. Let me address each of these in turn.

NATO's main priority is Afghanistan. That's been the message from the Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, since the day he took office, and it's as true today as ever. At the Summit President Karzai came to Istanbul to meet with NATO's Heads of State and Government to get their response to his request for more NATO support for his country as we look forward to the elections that we now know, in terms of the presidential elections, will take place on October 9th.

He got at Istanbul the answer he was hoping to get. NATO's Heads of State and Government committed the resources to expand NATO's presence into the north, to begin looking towards expansion into the west of Afghanistan as well, and to be in a position to provide additional support during the election period, as I said, which will now take place at the beginning of October.

What does this mean? Already NATO has taken two more provincial reconstruction teams under its command, and within the next few weeks there will be five under NATO command; at Kuduz, in Feyzabad, in Maimana, in Mazar-e-Sharif and in the coming weeks in Baglan as well, under Dutch command.

This commitment, this agreement, to not only take under NATO's command more PRTs, but also to surge a battalion-sized force into Afghanistan during the elections and to have two battalions and a brigade-sized headquarters, out of country, as our over-the-horizon force, makes it very clear that NATO, while perhaps a little bit slower than we would have liked, will, indeed, be able to meet its commitment and that's exactly the message that the Secretary General and NATO's presidents and prime ministers gave to President Karzai in Afghanistan.

Next to Iraq. Of course, until a few weeks before the Summit it wasn't clear that NATO would indeed take an active decision on a concrete role in Iraq. But the Secretary General received from Prime Minister Allawi a letter requesting NATO's assistance to support the training of Iraqi security forces, to assist in the development of Iraqi security institutions, and to provide other forms of technical assistance.
NATO nations agreed to all three of these requests. NATO will provide training for security forces. A NATO team has been to Baghdad, has returned and is developing for Alliance leaders, Alliance Ambassadors here at NATO Headquarters and for the Secretary General, options for how the Alliance can provide that kind of training assistance.

At the same time the Secretary General is developing a menu of options for Allies to consider for further technical assistance. So the Alliance here too will meet its commitment. It's very early days yet. We're not in a position to be able to define, certainly to define publicly, what exactly NATO will do, where exactly it will do it and in what form the training and other assistance might take place.

But the commitment has been made and it is being met very, very quickly. And for our next policy briefing here on the Internet I'll be in a position to give you much, much more detail.

Two other areas of operations were discussed at the Summit and decisions were taken in both areas.

On the Balkans first: NATO's presidents and prime ministers agreed that after nine years, nine very successful years, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, after having brought the war to an end in 1995, and having kept the peace for nine long years, SFOR, as we now call our NATO-led mission, can be brought to a successful conclusion. That decision was taken.

A decision was also taken to leave a NATO headquarters in Sarajevo, with a senior military representative at its head, with a principal role to assist... continue assisting in Bosnia and Herzegovina's defence reform. That is one of the essential building blocks for this country to move closer to NATO and in particular to join the Partnership for Peace, and NATO wants to help that happen, including through our headquarters.
The headquarters will also play a role in helping to apprehend those indicted for war crimes. That role will also be played by the European Union, which will have a follow-on force; a follow-on force that NATO will support fully under our Berlin Plus arrangements.

The progress in apprehending those indicted for war crimes is perhaps the major stumbling block preventing Bosnia and Herzegovina from moving closer to the EU and moving closer to NATO. Both the EU and NATO want to support the Bosnian authorities, because it is their responsibility, first and foremost, to meet that responsibility, to apprehend those indicted for war crimes and remove the speed bump that is keeping them from their own goal, a goal that we share, to come closer to Euro-Atlantic institutions.

On Kosovo Heads of State and Government in Istanbul could make very little in the way of active decisions. The situation there is simply too fragile and too tense, to envision a dramatic reduction or restructuring of the KFOR mission, the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo.

In the end the solutions in Kosovo... for Kosovo, will be political. Between the communities in Kosovo, between Pristina and Belgrade, and with the support of the UN and the contact group in which NATO is now playing a more active role. KFOR can continue to keep the lid on the security situation, help to maintain security, but as I say, the solutions remain political, and we cannot envision for the moment a reduction, a significant reduction in the size of KFOR.

One more operational issue: That is Operation Active Endeavour, NATO's shipping operation, protecting shipping and deterring terrorism from one end of the Mediterranean to the other.

At the Summit Heads of State and Government agreed to open up Operation Active Endeavour to support by Russia, by Ukraine, and to stress that they are also open to support from Mediterranean Dialogue countries.

Russia and Ukraine have already indicated an interest in supporting this operation and NATO is in discussion with both of these countries for precisely that. And of course, we will deepen our relations and our discussions on this issue with Mediterranean Dialogue countries as well.

That is the first leg of the Istanbul stool, as it were. The operations leg. The second leg is our partnerships. To build security, to project stability in the modern world, of course operations are not nearly sufficient. We have to build them through partnerships, through dialogue, through greater understanding and through peaceful cooperation that helps to build stability. And that is very much what NATO has always done. It is certainly what NATO is doing today and Istanbul helped take us a step forward in that regard.

Foreign ministers, NATO foreign ministers, met in Istanbul with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov to discuss the whole host, the whole range of NATO and Russia practical cooperation. We strengthened that practical cooperation precisely in the area that I've already mentioned. Operation Active Endeavour, where the offer was made, for Russia to support the operation. Russia indicated its interest and we're now working on the modalities of doing just that.

Heads of State and Government met with President Kuchma of Ukraine as well, and delivered three strong messages. One is that they, NATO leaders, NATO countries, believe very strongly in Ukraine's strategic importance for Euro-Atlantic security. And they continue to believe that.

They also stress their strong support for the reform process in Ukraine; democratic reform, military reform, and economic reform. And they were willing t support through NATO, where NATO has a role, in moving that reform process forward. But at the same time they delivered a clear message that they hope and they wish for Ukraine to continue to work to meet our standards, Euro-Atlantic standards, of free and fair elections, including soon in September in Ukraine, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of speech, democratic reform, military reform. These are principles and values which NATO countries hold very dear, and they wish and did make very clear to President Kuchma, that they wish to see Ukraine meet those same standards and they will help Ukraine to meet them.

President Kuchma, for his part, stressed that he too wishes to move forward in all these areas, and that he would welcome NATO support in that regard.

NATO has partnership relations, and has had for ten years, with countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia. After the decisions in Istanbul we will strengthen those relations. The Alliance will appoint special representatives, one each for the Caucasus and for Central Asia, precisely to devote more political attention to these regions to get more information from them, to provide more focused assistance to them, and to help to promote regional solutions to regional problems. The modalities of these special representatives, who they will be, how they will be hired, how they will be housed, are all being worked out now. And over the coming weeks, hopefully by the next time we do a background brief here on the Internet I'll be in a position to give you more detail on that as well.

Finally, in our partnership area let me mention the Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. At Istanbul Heads of State and Government agreed to take the Mediterranean Dialogue from dialogue to partnership, with more practical cooperation, more of a focus on interoperability, with the potential for joint training and even joint operations, more focused efforts to battle terrorism together.

This was a substantial step forward for our Mediterranean Dialogue, which very soon will reach its ten year anniversary and it is maturing quickly and in a very positive way.
In a separate and parallel, but complementary track, Heads of State and Government made an offer--what we call the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative--to interested parties of the broader region of the Middle East, beginning likely with Gulf countries.

The Deputy Secretary General Allesandro Minuto Rizzo, has already been in touch with these Gulf countries and has received a positive response. In essence, the offer is very simple. If you are interested in having a dialogue with NATO, if they wish to have a dialogue on security issues of interest to them, and that are also of course of interest to NATO countries, and where NATO can provide an added value, then the Alliance wishes to begin that dialogue, to see where this new dialogue and cooperation can go.
And if it can break down misconceptions, promote dialogue, promote cooperation, then it can only be for the better. So we certainly hope and expect that over the coming weeks and months this Istanbul Cooperation Initiative will get some traction, we will get interest from countries of the Gulf and perhaps even beyond. And we will put this Istanbul Cooperation Initiative firmly into action.

That is the second leg of the stool. From operations, now also partnership. The third leg of the stool is NATO's transformation. The security environment is changing constantly; the global security environment. And NATO is indeed increasingly engaged in new parts of the world for the Alliance, and of course taking on very new missions, facing very new challenges.

So NATO's transformation, it's not an event, it's a continuous process, and it does not begin on Monday and end on Friday. It is something that happens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 12 months a year. And it has taken another step forward in Istanbul.
Heads of State and Government set ambitious military targets for the usability and deployability of their forces. They took stock of the efforts to acquire the new military capabilities that NATO nations need in terms of strategic air transport, strategic sea transport, air-to-air refuelling, precisions-guided munitions and a whole host of other areas.

They approved a package of eight new cutting edge technologies to help defend against terrorism. For example, technologies to protect civilian airliners from shoulder-fired missiles, or to protect ports and ships from underwater attack. All of these initiatives you can find on the website as well.

But the Secretary General also got what he had sought going into the Istanbul Summit and that was a clear direction from Heads of State and Government to take a close look at the way in which NATO generates its forces once the political commitment has been made to take on an operation.

The Secretary General wants to ensure that when that political commitment is made the resources follow and that they follow in sufficient amounts and in a timely manner to allow NATO to carry out the operation when it has to and where it has to.

So he will be taking now a very fundamental look at the way that NATO nations finance our operations, the way that they plan for operations, maybe having a broader horizon, a longer-term horizon for defence planning. He will take a very fundamental out of the... pushing the envelop look at how NATO nations provide the forces, when and where we need them to meet our political commitments for the fundamentally new operations that we take on. And you will see the developments from that flow over the coming weeks and months as well.

So to sum up: In our minds Istanbul was a successful summit. It was one in which we took on new operations, met our commitments on existing operations and brought to an end successful operations. We deepened our partnership and opened channels of dialogue to very strategically important areas of the world where we had never had a dialogue before, but where it is fundamentally important that we build new bridges.
And we took NATO's transformation forward as well, to give us the capabilities that we need as an Alliance to take on the missions that we are faced with today and that we may face tomorrow.

So that is it for this month's briefing.