Joint press point

ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN (Secretary General of NATO): Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome to this press conference. It's a great pleasure for me to welcome to the NATO Headquarters the President of Lithuania, a warm welcome. It's really a great pleasure for me to get this opportunity to meet with you.

And let me take this opportunity to congratulate you on the assumption of the presidency of Lithuania. I wish you the best of luck in your important job, which you have assumed at a very challenging time. I look very much forward to cooperating with you on continued reform and transformation and strengthening of NATO.

The President and I have had a very constructive and fruitful meeting this afternoon. We have touched upon a number of issues. Let me just mention a couple of points here.

Firstly, I would like to express my appreciation of the significant Lithuanian contribution to our mission in Afghanistan. It is highly valued. You have taken the lead of a Provincial Reconstruction Team. It's a very important contribution.

I attach a great importance to our mission in Afghanistan. We cannot afford Afghanistan, once again, to become a safe haven for terrorism. It's about our own security. And therefore, we are in this together, and we will do what it takes to ensure peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Which leads me to my second point. Recent elections in Afghanistan have been conducted effectively. We are now waiting for the final results of the elections, but I would like to congratulate the Afghan population on the elections. The outcome of these elections is of crucial importance for the future of Afghanistan, and I would like to assure the Afghan people that we will stay committed and secure the country, and assist Afghanistan in taking over responsibility for the security itself.

Therefore, it is crucial that NATO establishes a NATO training mission in Afghanistan so that we can train and educate Afghan soldiers and Afghan policemen in order for them to take over responsibility gradually, as their capacity develops. And I urge all allies within NATO to contribute to this NATO training mission.

Madam President.

DALIA GRYBAUSKAIT (President of Lithuania): Thank you very much. For me, as for Secretary General, we practically starting more or less the same timing, and our discussion was very concrete and detailed, probably because we both are ex-Finance Ministers. So that's how our career was developing.

Finally, now we're talking about the NATO strategic future, in which Lithuania is very interested. The life is changing, environment is changing, understanding and definition of security is changing. Article 5 is changing and supposed to change.

So Lithuania is eager to be involved and to be active in new proposals to be prepared for the next year's new strategic project which we are now under your leadership looking for, and of course for Lithuania to be the responsible member of the organization is one of the most important goals. Why in Afghanistan we will stay and do our duty as long as it takes and necessary, while the province we are engaged in is practically more than half of my country, by territory. But Lithuania is doing its best.

So Lithuania was satisfied receiving the information on the new approach and openness which I was hearing from you, Secretary General, talking about new Article 5's definition in future, widening its understanding in globalized world, about the relations with Russia, which we are eager to solve and to have new openings together with Belarussia(sic), and for us it's important because we're neighbouring country or the last country with this to (inaudible) our neighbours as members of NATO.

So all these questions and new possibilities, or new, at least, possibilities to engage with the neighbourhood is in line with what I was hearing from you. And Lithuania is open and cooperative.

So we would like to be active member, supportive member, creative member, I hope, it's all my (inaudible)  here, the hearing creative member, with a lot of proposals, and I hope that we will be able to have very soon the results for the new strategy, for the organization's new goals, which we need to agree together by the next autumn.

Q: Nick Rigillo from DPA, German News Agency. Secretary General, you mentioned Afghanistan in your introduction, and today we have reports that the number of coalition casualties has risen to 295, which is one more than the whole of for last year. Could you comment on that? And also on the elections, how do you comment on the reports about irregularities in the voting process? Thanks.

ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN: First of all, let me convey my condolences to all bereaved and affected families and express my sympathy with the people in our allied nations who contribute in a very important and significant way to our mission in Afghanistan.

It is of crucial importance that we stay committed, that we fulfil our mission in Afghanistan. It's about our own security. If we allow terrorism to get rooted again in Afghanistan it might spread quickly to other parts of the world, so at the end of the day this is a question of our own security. And I hope that people in troop-contributing countries understand that.

Concerning the elections, I would say that seen from a security point of view they were conducted effectively and I would also say better than expected. Obviously we saw some incidents. We had expected that. But from an overall view I think they were conducted effectively.

Not least, thanks to the very efficient work of the Afghan National Security Forces, and I would like to congratulate them on that.

The important thing now is that the elections are considered credible in Afghanistan and I would urge all parties in Afghanistan to handle the electoral process and the outcome of the elections in a responsible manner.

Q: Yanosh Karpati(ph), Hungarian News Agency, MTI. Mr. Secretary General, there was violence in Kosovo again. Do you think the time is ripe to reduce the number of troops, KFOR troops there?

ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN: Well, I visited Kosovo recently and I am indeed encouraged by the development and the situation in Kosovo and in the Western Balkans. I think time is ripe to take the first step in the direction of a so-called deterrence presence and the first step is to reduce the number of KFOR troops from a level of around 15,000 to a level of 10,000.

Whether we can continue in the direction of reducing the number of troops will very much depend on a thorough military and political analysis of the situation, and I can assure you that we will not take any step which will have a negative impact on the security situation in Kosovo and in the Balkans. But I think it should be a long-term goal to reduce our military presence in the region in full accordance with improvements in the security situation.

Q: (Inaudible) Faruki from GEO Television, Pakistan. Secretary General, are you satisfied with the Pakistani performance in the South Waziristan, Malakand and Swat, are they doing the job and there was long-time demand of do more of Pakistan, which is now receding, so what are your views now, at this moment, about Pakistani performance?

ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN: I would like to commend the Pakistani armed forces and the Pakistani government for their efforts in the fight against terrorism in the Swat region and in other tribal areas. We appreciate that.

In addition to that I would like to stress that I consider Pakistan a very important partner. I would very much like to see further development of our cooperation with Pakistan and it will be one of my priorities during my tenure as Secretary General.

Q: (Inaudible...), Agence France-Presse, AFP. Two questions, if I may? Do you agree, Mr. Secretary General, that the Article 5 of NATO Charter should be changed in a way. I thought it was to remain the backbone of NATO policy in the future. Do you agree that there will be changes in the Article 5? And secondly, have you discussed the issue of piracy in the Baltic Sea, for instance, with regard to the Arctic Sea problems we had earlier this month? And could you confirm that NATO was always able to track the Russian ship during the whole period? It was supposed to be missing.

ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN: Well, we didn't discuss piracy in the Baltic Sea during our meeting today and I'm not going to comment on details... in details on the Arctic Sea case.

Concerning Article 5, I fully agree with the President that Article 5 has been at the core of NATO's tasks since NATO was founded 60 years ago and the Article 5 commitment will still be a core function in the coming years.

However, as the President pointed out, we have to address the new threats we are faced with in today's world. We have to realize that territorial defence, according to Article 5, takes new measures in today's world, because we are faced with new threats.

Let me just mention one threat on which we had an exchange of views during our meeting today. Cyber security. It is a reality in today's world that we have to address this new threat. Actually, piracy is another example of new threats and we also have to realize that very often territorial defence starts out of area.

So we have to address all these new dimensions of security and that's exactly what we're going to do in our deliberations on a new strategic concept. I have initiated a process with the aim to adopt a new strategic concept by the end of next year.

Thank you.