Video background briefing

Hello, and welcome to the third of my monthly briefings on NATO's Agenda: What has happened in the past month and what will be happening in the month to come.

This month, we are hosting the briefing in what we call "Room one". This is the main meeting room of the North Atlantic Council. This is where, throughout the decades since NATO moved to Brussels, most of the work, most of the most important work, has taken place here in the Alliance, where Ambassadors come together with the Secretary General, under the Chairmanship of the Secretary General and arrive at agreement. Just behind me is where the Secretary General sits and around the table, all the ambassadors sit in alphabetical order. Now we don't meet in this room as often as we used to, precisely because of course now the Alliance has grown from nineteen members to twenty six and when more than one person needs to represent their country, this room has sometimes become simply too small. So, we move down the hall to "room sixteen" where our previous briefing by Jamie Shea was once filmed, a much larger room. But still, this is a certainly one of the hearts of the Alliance and I'm very glad that we could show it to you.

In the past few weeks, quite a few important events have taken place. One was the Secretary General's visit to Russia where he met with President Putin, the Foreign Minister, the Defence Minister and many other senior officials. The most important piece of concrete work that was done in Russia was the signature by the Defence Minister of Russia and the Secretary General of documents on upgrading the military representation of Russia here at NATO and of NATO in Russia. These documents were signed after quite a long stretch of negotiation; but we are very pleased that that has happened. It certainly reflects the very strong and very concrete and now increasingly practical relationship that NATO and Russia have.

And the practical nature of this relationship was precisely what the Secretary General and President Putin discussed in their meeting. Both agreed that while we have a very good framework for discussion in the NATO-Russia Council, while we have a broad range of discussions and working groups, it would be important to increasingly put NATO and Russia co-operation on a practical footing where we have more and more concrete areas of co-operation and certainly work will proceed in that area.

The Secretary General has also visited Ukraine and this was another important meeting for him. In Ukraine, the Secretary General agreed with President Kuchma on the importance of the strategic partnership between NATO and Ukraine. They also agreed on the importance of Ukraine meeting its 2004 action plan, meeting the requirements that it has set out for itself to make progress and meeting the standards of the Euro-Atlantic Community.

And the Secretary General on behalf of the nations expressed the strong interest of NATO and of NATO's Allies in Ukraine meeting the democratic standards and the standards of reform which it had set out for itself. This is a standard and a benchmark which the Alliance pays very, very close attention to because as Ukraine moves to meet those benchmarks and those standards, it will simply make the relationship, the strategic partnership between NATO and Ukraine, all the stronger.

A very important meeting took place just a few days ago and that was a voyage, a trip made by the North Atlantic Council. All the representatives of NATO Nations led by its Chairman, the Secretary General, to Kosovo. This was very much in response to the violence that took place in mid March of this year. There was of course, as you all know, quite widespread violence that our experts assess to have been co-ordinated largely on the part of the ethnic Albanian community, where minorities and in particularly the ethnics Serb minority was targeted and subjected to extreme violence. Serb churches, Serb houses and monasteries were looted and burned and people were driven from their homes. The Council went, led by the Secretary General, to express its firm determination that the Alliance would remain in Kosovo through KFOR, to express their strong support for KFOR and to deliver strong political messages throughout the political spectrum of Kosovo. They met with the leaders of the ethnic Albanian community and the Secretary General and the Ambassadors made it very, very clear, that the ethnic Albanian community holds a strong responsibility, first, to prevent any further violence; second, to rebuild the damage that has been done; and third, to take a leadership position to try to put Kosovo firmly on the road of meeting the standards set by the Euro-Atlantic Community and in particular by the United Nations before any discussion of status can fruitfully go forward.

The Secretary General and the North Atlantic Council also met with representatives of the ethnic minorities in Kosovo. Not just the Serbs, but principally of course, the Serb ethnic minority community. They heard from the representatives of the ethnic minority communities how they had suffered, what the political situation and difficulties were that they faced. The Council expressed it strong sympathy. It certainly reiterated NATO's determination and KFOR's determination to provide security for all inhabitants of Kosovo, be they minority or majority ethnic group members.

The Council also encouraged members of the Kosovar Serb community to re-engage with the political process as part of the normalisation of political life for Kosovo and as a way to give themselves more voice and more political power.

The Secretary General reiterated this message in front of Kosovo's press. He also stressed his belief that the press in Kosovo should play a more responsible role, the role of the media played during the violence in Kosovo was not seen by the international community as helpful and the Secretary General stressed that he wishes and believes that the media can play a much more fruitful, a much more positive role in future in helping to avert future violence and future tension.

Recently, and staying within the context of the Balkans, the North Atlantic Council and it's equivalent body in the European Union - the COPS as it's called - met to discuss any possible future end of NATO's mission in Bosnia SFOR at the end of this year and the beginning of a European Union mission in Bosnia. This handover if you will or certainly this changeover will take place in full partnership between NATO and the European Union and in consultation with authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
At their discussions, the North Atlantic Council and their European Union equivalents discussed the details of how such a transition could take place. The military authorities briefed on exactly which relationships they would need to have put in place and the resources that they would need and of course the nations took careful note of this and shared their political assessment of how this transition could take place.

Looking forward. We are looking forward of course to the Istanbul Summit and one of the essential items on the Istanbul Summit will be Afghanistan. The Secretary General has identified Afghanistan as his number one priority, as NATO's number one priority, since the day he took up his post.

The North Atlantic Council will have visited, very soon, Afghanistan to see for themselves the political progress in Kabul but also out in the regions. They will have visited provincial reconstruction teams and seen the very good work that these provincial reconstruction teams are doing. The provincial reconstruction teams and indeed the International Security Assistance Force under NATO's leadership in ISAF are very, very important right now in the lead up to elections that will take place in September, elections across Afghanistan.

The Alliance is determined to support those elections and it has made that determination clear to President Karzai.

The Supreme Allied Commander, General Jones, has presented to the Nations an operational plan. That operational plan has now been approved and we are going forward with resourcing it. Nations are moving to provide the manpower and the equipment necessary to fill the provincial reconstruction teams in the north and then in the west of the country and that process is going forward on schedule. The Alliance will play its role as part of the international community in supporting the elections and of course in supporting the Karzai government or the government of Afghanistan as it goes forward in helping to spread its influence throughout the country and helping to create a stable peaceful country that contributes to security rather than being a drain on it.

Finally, another item that will be discussed at the Summit, will be NATO's engagement... deeper engagement with countries of the Mediterranean dialogue and beyond, and a conference will take place in Rome early in May where NATO ambassadors and the Secretary General and others will sit down to discuss with their counterparts of the region how we can most fruitfully work together, how we can most fruitfully co-operate together to deepen our mutual security.

That's it for this month, I'm looking forward to next month's briefing. Thank you.