Weekly press briefing

JAMES APPATHURAI (NATO Spokesman): I hate to interrupt what is obviously a happy room, but I'll start, if that's okay with you and then happy to take your questions. I've just got a few points.

One is that the Foreign and Defence Ministers of Montenegro were this morning at NATO. They were there to have the final discussion on the Individual Partnership Action Plan that Montenegro has been in. I say final, because last December Montenegro was invited to join the Membership Action Plan. And so the IPAP, the Individual Partnership Action Plan process now comes to an end and they start with the Annual National Program. This was not their first Annual National Program, which is the formal structure, through the Membership Action Plan, that they come closer to actually walking through the door of the Alliance. This guides their reforms towards membership.

They didn't submit their first membership Annual National Program today, but it is in draft form. They're working on it with the international staff, but in essence the process kicked off... one process closed today. That is the IPAP process, and they started the Membership Action Plan process.

In essence, Ambassadors and the Secretary General welcomed the quite substantial reforms that Montenegro has made since it applied to come closer to NATO. And the Secretary General and many allies thanked them for their support in Afghanistan as well.

The Secretary General focused on further reforms that need to be made, including enhancing public trust in the judiciary, developing the police force and working on public support for NATO membership.

The Ministers, of course, shared the same priorities. They also stressed that for them NATO membership is a political priority, and they will continue to make reforms, and NATO allies and NATO as an organization committed to continue helping them to do that.

Second issue on the NAC agenda today was what we call follow-up to the Defence Ministers meeting, and flowing from the Defence Ministers meeting there were about five specific areas in which work will now take place.

One is to develop a list, in essence, of the most pressing capability requirements. And this will be done with an eye to the Lisbon Summit. The context of this is, of course, the financial crisis. We have to prioritize and that means prioritizing also what capabilities we acquire. And so work will now begin, with an eye to Lisbon, to prioritize what are the most pressing capability needs.

Second, on missile defence. Ministers noted the study that concluded that expanding NATO's current missile defence project, which is to be able to protect deployed troops, so that it could also protect allied territory and populations was, is technically feasible. That's what they noted at the ministerial.

Now, flowing from that there, will be an analysis, a political and military analysis of all aspects of missile defence, including expansion of theatre missile defence, with an eye to the Foreign and Defence Ministers meeting in October. And that should set the stage for decisions at the Lisbon Summit. So that's the second track of work coming from the ministerial.

Third, Afghanistan. There was an extensive discussion of the importance of providing the last... the outstanding requirement for trainers, which is just over 400, as you know, about 450. That was the political discussion. In the coming weeks our military Headquarters, SHAPE, will be contacting nations again to encourage them to fill the requirements, and they will provide precise details about exactly what kind of trainers are required, and they will provide those details to the nations they know have those capabilities.

So we'll hopefully see some more progress in that regard.

Third, agency reform. NATO has 14 agencies that do a variety of things, for providing communication support, for deployed operations, to doing logistics, to developing helicopters.

The Secretary General got support out of the ministerial to reform the agencies, and in essence to streamline them to a much smaller number of agencies, grouped according to general functions.

Details of that will now be worked out, but he got political endorsement and I think it's safe to say there's a unanimous agreement that the number of agencies should be reduced and they should be streamlined, and that will happen, again, with an eye to Lisbon.

Finally, on the command structure. You know, there was an extensive discussion on streamlining of the command structure as well. Nothing was agreed at the ministerial. That wasn't the intention. But the aim flowing from last week's ministerial meeting is that the NAC should agree on a model for a NATO command structure.

Now, this model should be unconstrained by geographical footprint, so to be clear it won't name names. It's just what the best model should be without talking about where it should be.

Again, in time for the Lisbon Summit. So there is work now under way. Military and political work under way together, to look at how to... or what the best model would be for the command structure of the Alliance.

That was the first... I guess the second item on the agenda. The third was Kirgizstan. There was an extensive discussion on Kirgizstan. The Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs, Dirk Brengelmann, gave a briefing on what exactly is happening. Then there were comments from almost all the ambassadors. I would say there were a few common themes. One was, of course, concern, serious concern amongst NATO allies about the humanitarian situation in Kirgizstan. Second, of course, the point was made that Kirgizstan is a partner of NATO, formally a partner through the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, and therefore NATO has an interest in the issues or interest in what happens in Kirgizstan. And of course, there was the question of support for the mission in Afghanistan.

I have confirmed, my colleagues have confirmed, that NATO's northern line of communication, which was just recently formally opened, is not affected by the events in Kirgizstan. The supply route that is being used at present does not go through Kirgizstan. So for the moment the northern line of communication, in other words, the transit of supplies by rail, is not going through Kirgizstan. It is going through other countries and therefore we are not affected. This is not being affected by the events in Kirgizstan.

That being said, coming back to the humanitarian concern, Kirgizstan has sent to many nations a request for international assistance in the form of humanitarian medical and food aid. They have also sent this to NATO. NATO, of course, does not provide in and of itself humanitarian medical and food aid, but we have a disaster relief coordinator centre, which has forwarded this request to the allies and they are... and individual allies stimulated by this request through the NATO civil emergency planning structures, are, from what I understand, already as of today delivering medical supplies and humanitarian supplies. But I don't know exactly what those are, so I apologize for that.

That was the NAC. In about 20 minutes will be the NATO-Russia Council, at ambassadorial level. We have three issues on the agenda. One, the Secretary General will brief to the NRC on the results of the work of the Group of Experts that had prepared a report on NATO Strategic Concept. And of course, it's highly relevant to brief this in the context of the NATO-Russia Council because Russia has played a prominent part in the consultation process, Russia participated in the Oslo seminar on partnerships and Russia was the only country, only partner country, to which the entire group of experts made a visit. They met with Sergei Lavrov, they met with the Secretary of the Federation Council, met with representatives of the Duma, as well as professors and other members of civil society.

It's also relevant because Russia has quite a prominent place in the report itself. The report stresses the key role of partnerships and Russia has a specific place which proposes that NATO pursue a policy of constructive engagement with Russia and pushes for more commitment to the NRC, more pragmatic collaboration and a number of key principles are enshrined there.

So that is what will be briefed today. They will look at progress in developing the NRC joint review of 21st Century common security challenges. This was something initiated a few months ago and the Secretary General certainly believes that this is a very important foundation for future cooperation. We can agree on what our common security challenge is, and if we can do that that's the foundation for doing things together.

In case you don't follow this as carefully as we do, there are five areas in which we are focusing this review. One is obviously Afghanistan. The second terrorism and the vulnerability of critical infrastructure. The third is piracy. The fourth is proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery. And finally natural and manmade disasters, and this is in the area of civil emergencies and protection.

In all of these areas the assessment is under way to see exactly where we have common concerns and where we might have areas of common action.

Finally, I would not exclude that Kirgizstan, again, would be brought up and that the Russian Council today. This would seem to be only logical.

Final point and then I'm happy to take your questions. The Secretary General will visit Skopje on Friday. He will have a meeting with the president of Parliament, with the Prime Minister, Mr. Gruevski, the Deputy Prime Minister... let me just check. And with the President, with the Party President, Crvenkovski.

Okay, that's what I had. I'm happy to take your questions.

Q: (Inaudible...).

JAMES APPATHURAI: Relevant questions, but I don't have the answers to them. I had asked. I know what has been requested and it's a very long list. I had it with me a second ago. Here it is. And this is the formal request from the Kyrgyz government. And it runs through everything from surgical kits to bandages to medicine to blankets and pillows, plasma, etcetera.

Individual countries will be delivering supplies. It will not be delivered by NATO. It would not be delivered through NATO. NATO is only a clearing house for the request to allied countries.

Now whether they're delivering it through their own national systems, or what I consider to be much more likely, through the Red Cross or through the UN, or directly to the Kyrgyz government, I don't know, and I don't think we know in NATO. But I was informed just before leaving that the first supplies triggered by this request have begun arriving yesterday and today. So that's the most I can tell you about it.

Q: Clarification, you referred to the 14 agencies. Were you referring to Afghanistan? And what are these agencies?

JAMES APPATHURAI: Agencies... no, certainly not. Agencies are bodies set up in general not by all 28 NATO countries, but by groups of NATO countries. But that have a certain NATO imprimatur and general guidelines to do specific things.

So as I mentioned, we have an agency that provides the command and control and communications systems for troops that are deployed, but there's a small group of nations, I don't know how many it is, that work on developing a euro-copter helicopter, but which has an association to NATO.

So... and I could go on and on. There are 14 like this. And they all do sort of their own thing, but this wasn't seen to be the most efficient way of doing things. They kind of grew up over time. So that's the...

Q: James, could you elaborate? Who are these individual countries who deliver help for yesterday, to Kirgizstan, and if you can, more about concrete help they are delivering. Will be there from military aircraft, how it will go, because the situation is very alarming. It's a lot of tension there. So the question is, if it will be delivered by military aircraft, by other aircraft, how it will be organized, whatever you know, and who are these contributors?

JAMES APPATHURAI: Yes, I wish I could give you the answer to any of those questions. I don't have the answer to any of those questions. As I said, I don't see... it won't be through NATO. It will be done by individual countries, and therefore I don't have that information. So I'm sorry, I just don't know.

Q: (Inaudible...)? Do you think it will be possible to...

JAMES APPATHURAI: I will see... I mean, as I say, it's only just started, but I will go back to the Headquarters and see if we can get more information.

Q: That's what you said yesterday. Yesterday there already was some relief operation.

JAMES APPATHURAI: Let me be very clear. This is not relief operations. This is supplies provided in response to a request from the government, so there are no, as far as I'm aware, no military planes flying into Bishkek from NATO countries to deliver supplies. I think supplies are being provided to the Red Cross, or the government or the UN, but I don't know how they're being provided, so let us not go away from here thinking that the skies are dark with NATO military aircraft flying into the country because they're not.

So, supplies are on their way. I don't know exactly how, but I will dig into it.

Q: (Inaudible...) and one more follow-up question if I may. You say that they already landed, so what they brought if they landed, if you know it. What they brought. What they brought. Because you say that, and what is kind of mechanism is that, you say, because it's disaster relief mechanism. It's a framework. It's legal framework, so can you elaborate on this framework.

JAMES APPATHURAI: It's not a legal framework. We have a coordination centre which is a clearing house, as I say, for requests. So countries—and this has happened many, many times—countries that are facing one kind of emergency or another send a request to NATO and say could you please tell everybody that's on your list, all the NATO countries, that we need the following things.

And that is the extent to which NATO plays a role, except they should probably be aware of then what is actually delivered in response to that. So that's what I have to go and check now.

Q: Because they're partners, (inaudible...) partners, so if they are partners they have some privileged procedure, they have some privileged mechanism, because officially they are partners in NATO.

JAMES APPATHURAI: Well, indeed, and they are members of this group of the Euro-Atlantic Disaster Relief Coordination Centre. So they make the request. It goes through the NATO structure, and as I say, I was informed that supplies are starting to move, but I have no more detail than that so I will go and find out. Thank you. I think you were next.

Q: James, since you are in intimate with the geography of Afghanistan...

JAMES APPATHURAI: Oh yes.

Q: ...and its surroundings, can you remind us of where does this northern supply route via rail, this new Russia and beyond railroad go through so that we get an idea about how far away we are from the trouble spots?

And second question, I mean, I know at least about the Germans who have a base in Termez, Uzbekistan for Afghanistan. I don't know how many other countries have, but is it possible that, for example, Afghanistan operations in Uzbekistan by ISAF members are affected by that trouble?

JAMES APPATHURAI: To answer the first question, the northern route is basically following... the northern line of communication is following the following route: from Riga... so from Latvia through Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, into Afghanistan. That's the route that's being followed.

Yes. So that's the answer to the first question. The second question, I have not heard, had any information or had any reports that supplies into Afghanistan, in countries like Uzbekistan or any neighbouring country have been affected by the ongoing instability.

Q: Just a follow-up to this. Belarus seems in an odd position in that list.

Q: You just said Uzbekistan...

Q: Belarus.

JAMES APPATHURAI: Oh yes, yes, sorry. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan.

Q: (Inaudible...).

JAMES APPATHURAI: Well, it does seem oddly placed, doesn't it? (Laughs). No, yes, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan... I think somebody needs to look at this little press release a little bit more closely, yes. Thank you.

Sorry, did you have another follow-up?

Q: No, that's good.

JAMES APPATHURAI: Okay, go ahead.

Q: James, you mentioned that the number of agencies will be used. I'm just curious if NAMSA is on the list and how that will impact the NATO programs on elimination of excessive weaponry on the third countries like land mines, ammunition and so on.

JAMES APPATHURAI: First, no decision has been made on which agencies should be, if reduced, or how they should be grouped if that's the decision. But I didn't hear from anyone that essential capabilities developed by, or activities carried out by, these agencies should be reduced. That's not the point. It's not to reduce the output. It's to reduce the overhead, reduce the duplication, increase the efficiency of these various agencies by grouping them more efficiently, and therefore, at the very least, reducing the kind of support that they all each individually require. But no one's talking about reducing activities or outputs as far as I'm aware.

Q: Julian Hale, Defense News. Three questions. One was about the agencies. When might, do you think, a decision be taken on that?

Also, the NATO Secretary General spoke about 1.5 billion euro savings that he believed could be made almost immediately, no? Have I not got that right?

JAMES APPATHURAI: No. He talked about 1.4 over the next four years.

Q: Over the next four years. Is the idea for that money to be channelled into particular things and if so, what things or just saved? And the third one, have any NATO countries taken up this American offer of MRAPs?

JAMES APPATHURAI: Thank you. On the agencies, I think it's safe to say that a decision point for the Alliance on many issues will be the Lisbon Summit. So I presume that the work that's in place will be done with an eye to Lisbon.

Second, on savings. I think it would be a mistake to make direct one-to-one correlations between savings in one area, investments in another. That's not really the way it works.

But I do think that as a principle where cuts or savings or deferments release funds the Secretary General's clear belief is that they should be spent on where we have priorities, and that means two things: deployable capability as opposed to static headquarters, and B, multilateral, multinational cooperative projects.

In other words, everybody's got a little bit less money and together we can buy capabilities that individually we'll be even less able to afford than we were before the financial crisis hit.

Now the temptation is always to cut in those areas and protect at home. His assessment, and it's the assessment of NATO, is that that temptation should be avoided. It's very understandable, but what it will mean is less capability where we need it and that is deployable in the field.

So if I had to summarize where he thinks investment should be made, including if funds are freed up from other savings, it should be in those areas.

In terms of MRAPs, which are, by the way, basically armoured vehicles which are designed specifically to protect against the kind of threat that our forces all face in Afghanistan, improvised explosive devices or explosive devices of any kind, as Julian knows, the United States has made a very generous offer to its allies and partners in Afghanistan to make available to them, either through purchase or loan, MRAPs in significant numbers.

I don't know if any nation has taken them up yet on this offer. I know... because it's an American offer and it's not done through NATO. But he briefed extensively on this to say A, that they're available, this is what he said two days ago. They're available, training is available for those that would use it and the United States is committed to providing to its allies and partners in the field, this tool. And they have them.

So I don't know if anyone's taken them up, but if they haven't they will soon.

Q: Yes, Fukushima from Mainichi. Tomorrow the EU will make a decision on Iranian nuclear issues by deciding to make additional measures based on the UN Security Council resolutions, and I think at Defence Ministers meeting Mr. Secretary of Defence, Mr. Gates, made an assessment that it will be for one, two, three years that Iran will have a nuclear weapon. Do you have any assessment on the NATO side of this issue? And are there any plan that the NAC or other formula that they will discuss for that. Thank you very much.

JAMES APPATHURAI: Thank you. For the moment NATO's not involved in the Iranian nuclear issue. There are other bodies to do that, the Security Council being the first and foremost among them.

But the Secretary General has repeatedly said that if we were to arrive at a situation in which Iran would have a nuclear capability and in light of the fact that the Iran is demonstrably developing its missile capability, to be able to reach more and more of European territory, in that circumstance missile defence becomes highly relevant and is one of the reasons why he is a strong proponent of developing a NATO missile defence system that will protect allied territory and population.

But for the moment NATO is not involved in this issue, and very frankly, we don't discuss in the North Atlantic Council the latest intelligence on Iran's nuclear capability because it's an issue being dealt with, and quite appropriately, for the moment, elsewhere.

Q: James, it's about the reductions in committees announced last week. Some people are complaining that the reduction is not so real because for the partnerships there was one committee for each partner country that was refunded in one committee for partnerships, but the meetings with every single country still are going on, so the reduction of committees is only in name.

JAMES APPATHURAI: Well, in fact, and I have to say I have some experience with committees in NATO, and NATO is a place to go if you like committees, I have to say, it is real and it's significantly real because if you have ten committees, those ten committees have to be supported by very often in NATO different divisions, different executive officers, different note takers, different support staff, so there's already all of that bureaucracy that takes place.

Second, in each delegation, because there were different committees, they would have different people supporting that committee. Each one of which was going to different meetings, each one of which was spending their time writing reports. Now it's one person and one support staff to deal with all the partnership issues.

So in fact, it is quite a substantial amount of reduction in the support and effort that goes into the committee meetings. You may have just as many sit-down meetings, but you could have one-fifth as many support or... or one-fifth as many hours devoted to supporting those committees, and one-fifth as many people coming from delegations who have to go to those meetings, and then, of course, all the work that flows from it.

So I'm afraid the people who complain about it have not had the rich experience of meetings that I have and it is a change. It is a substantial change.

Q: James, coming back to the NRC agenda today. They discussed... you said they will discuss the common threats. What is the end of this analysis? Will they... okay, they agree, they are not threat to each other, what is next? Will they discuss or take actions together as 29 or NATO members will discuss the problem in zero reading as 28 and then with Russia?

JAMES APPATHURAI: Thank you. I think you raise a very important point. What's the point of this? And I think we have to understand the situation as it is. One is that there is a lurking suspicion, I think, in some circles that we are... that NATO countries and Russia are still a threat to each other and that needs to be removed. Second, there is no formal, certainly, and I would say not even particularly informal common shared view and prioritized list of what challenges we should focus on. What do we face together? What challenges do we face together as 29 countries? You could get 29 different views around the table. What's being developed now is a prioritized short list which will allow for focused work. And that's the third point. With a list like this in place it becomes possible to do coherent cooperation, focused cooperation.

And the final point I would make—and I'm going past the Rasmussen rule of three and I'm going to go to four—is that there is a strong desire on the part of NATO countries to have real substantive cooperation with Russia in areas that matter not just to us, but to Russia as well, because that's the way to build trust and cooperation. And of course, we want the same thing. In the other direction there should be reciprocity.

So there's no trick to this. There's no hidden agenda. It is a practical way to set a foundation on which all 29 countries can stand to do practical things together that matter to all 29. And I can certainly assure you, speaking for the 28, that they want this to deliver real results and not just to be a paper exercise. And speaking for the Secretary General, he definitely wants this to deliver practical results.

Q: I was reading a press report that Russia was considering potentially using its military in some way to help or assist or be involved in Kirgizstan. Is there any sort of... is NATO satisfied with Russia's attitude or political approach and will there be any concerns that might be raised today at the NRC?

JAMES APPATHURAI: I think Ambassadors will... the 28 NATO Ambassadors, because I don't speak for the Russian, will certainly be interested in hearing Russia's perspective on this, what Russia is considering. It's exactly the kind of issue which the NRC should be discussing as a forum for information exchange. This is complicated for everybody. And it's complicated for Russia as much as it is for everybody else.

So it will be a useful opportunity to exchange views. Very frankly I haven't heard any criticism of what Russia has done, not once in today's discussion. The NRC is the place to exchange views and that's what they'll do.

You're free! And I'll try to get... no no, I know, I'm not free. I know you're free.