Weekly press briefing

James Appathurai (NATO Spokesman): Friends, I'm so sorry for being late. It's a bit of a mess traffic-wise outside, but thank you for your patience. I will get straight to business. I have three issues to discuss with you, very briefly, and then I'm happy to take your questions. Can you not hear me?

Q: (Inaudible...).

James Appathurai: It could be better. I will talk more loudly. How's that? I'm good at that.

First, an agenda issue. The Secretary General will travel to Turkey tomorrow. He will meet with President Gül, Prime Minister Erdogan, the Foreign and Defence Ministers. I think there will be three main issues on the agenda. One is Afghanistan. Turkey plays a very active role in our operation and has just extended its command of Regional Command Capital for one more year. And they do an excellent job there. That is, of course, demonstrated by the success that has been shown in improving security in Kabul, where they have played a very important role.

But also Turkey has two Provincial Reconstruction Teams. They play an active political role in Afghanistan, in Pakistan and in bringing the two countries together, so in all these areas the Secretary General, I think, will wish to thank Turkey.

I wouldn't be surprised if he focused on the issue of training and trainers. Turkey is playing an active role in training Afghan Security Forces, but I have not been on a visit yet with the Secretary General where he has not suggested that an ally or partner might wish to consider contributing even more to the training effort under the bumper sticker, which also is true, trainers are the ticket to transition.

Second, the Strategic Concept, and I will come back to that in a moment. We have the Foreign and Defence Ministers of the Alliance in Brussels next week with that, the Strategic Concept, as the main topic, a main topic of discussion. And of course, the Summit is in just a few weeks.

He will wish to address with our Turkish colleagues all the... or his Turkish colleagues, all the relevant political issues. And again, we can come back to that in the discussion afterwards if you wish.

Finally, NATO-EU relations. The Secretary General made improving NATO-EU relations one his priorities from the day and on the day that he took office. He has pushed very hard and very specifically to... or he's pushed very hard to improve NATO-EU relations he has made very specific proposals for moving the yardsticks on these issues. And he will be discussing, of course, in Ankara, what steps we can take to take that forward.

Again, I'm happy to come back to that

Second issue, the Ministerial, and I'd like to run through with you some of the issues that are on the agenda for the Ministerial next week.

This Ministerial will be exceptional in format, as well as in substance, in that both the Foreign and Defence Ministers of the Alliance will be here together on the same day. I don't remember, certainly in my time at NATO, that we've had that before.

Defence Ministers will meet as Defence Ministers, but without their Foreign Minister colleagues, from 9:00 a.m. to 11:45. There will be a joint session from 1:00 in the afternoon until 4:00 in the afternoon. And then Foreign Ministers only from 4:45 until 7:00. It's going to be a long day for all of us, in fact.

The purpose is to get clear political direction on the key issues where we need guidance from now until the Lisbon Summit, because in essence the Ministerial next week starts the sprint to the Summit. And the Secretary General will put a number of key issues on the agenda to get their political direction.

Afghanistan is not on the agenda. We will have a Ministerial... sorry, an Ambassadorial level meeting the day before of all the ISAF countries. General Petraeus and Ambassador Mark Sedwill, our Civilian Representative, will be here in Brussels for that meeting. But Afghanistan will not be on the agenda the next day.

So let me run through the three parts. First, Defence Ministers. That will focus on reform and transformation. One element, reform of the command structure. There are quite well developed discussions now on reforming the command structure to make it more flexible, more cost effective, without diminishing the level of ambition or the capability. Just to give you a framework for how much has already been done, in 1995 we had 27,000 personnel in 26 headquarters locations in the integrated command structure. We are now down to 13,000... 13,200 in 11 locations and that's with 150,000 troops deployed on operations.

So there has been an increase in output and a diminishment in headquarters concrete and staff. Already allies are looking to continue the reform process. More flexible, more effective and more cost effective.

Secondly, they're going to look at agency reform. NATO has 14 agencies which do a number of things, from building helicopters to providing communications support for deployed troops. There is an effort under way and the Secretary General is pushing very hard to have the number of agencies cut substantially and to get agreement on that by the time of the Summit, to deliver the same services, but to do it in a much more cost effective way.

And to give you one example, they're looking at combining all the support services for all these agencies to bring them together to be more cost effective.

Third, they will be looking at a capability package that addresses the Alliance's most pressing capability needs. So we can prioritize on what's most necessary. Obviously defence dollars and euros are tight. It's important to prioritize and focus.

To give you an example, counter IED technologies, expanding airlift, communications in Afghanistan; these are all areas where we could consider prioritizing.

Finally, headquarters reform, that means NATO's headquarters reform. A lot has already been done. The Secretary General has moved resources around. Again, prioritized and created a new division that focuses on emerging security challenges. And he will continue to push in that direction.

The bottom line is, I think, the shared view, and we heard this again around the NAC table this morning; NATO is already good value, it gives good value for defence. And we're going to make it better value, but still deliver modern defence.

The Joint Foreign and Defence Ministers Meeting will focus on the Strategic Concept. As you know very well the Secretary General has already released his draft to the nations. There has been Ambassadorial level discussion and that will continue today, by the way, but the meeting next week will give political guidance from Foreign and Defence Ministers on all the key issues.

Secondly, they should discuss missile defence with an eye to a decision, possible decision, to have NATO acquire the capability to defend European territory and populations against missile attack at the Lisbon Summit.

Finally, Foreign Ministers will focus on partnerships. I expect that the Strategic Concept will have strong language on strengthening and broadening, deepening NATO's partnerships with global partners; both nations and other organizations like the EU, the UN, and of course Russia. And I imagine that there will be discussion on all those issues.

The context with Russia is, of course, that we still have an invitation. Well, there is an invitation from the Secretary General out to all 29 NATO-Russia Council members. Twenty-eight of them have accepted a Summit-level meting in Lisbon, and the Secretary General certainly hopes that Russia will be in a position to attend, but that will be driven, I think, for all 29 countries, driven by substance and there should be a discussion of substance next week. For example, accelerating work on the joint review of 21st century threats and challenges, looking at what more we can do to cooperate, to fight the many challenges that we all face in Afghanistan, et cetera.

Final point, just the day after the Ministerial, on the 15th, the Secretary General will travel to Paris. He will meet with President Sarkozy. Other meetings are still, I think, to be determined, but there will be other meetings and he will give a speech at the IFRI and we will give you more details of that when we're closer to the day, the exact time. Things are moving a little bit.

That's all I wanted to say to start. It was a lot, but I'm happy to take your questions.

Q: The visit with Turkey, will (inaudible...) ICI, the Istanbul Cooperative Initiative that was born in Istanbul, will be discussed? And my second question is also on the developments now in Pakistan with the attacks on NATO convoys and what is your comment on this? Will it sort of harm relations between NATO and Pakistan? Thank you.

James Appathurai: Thank you. On the ICI, honestly speaking, it's an important issue for all allies. Of course it's important for Turkey and it's important for the Secretary General. I don't expect it to be a principal subject. It's working fine. There are immediate priority issues that I think he will press on, to be very blunt. I can't exclude that it will be brought up, but I don't think it's the main focus.

On Pakistan. The Secretary General had a long discussion with Foreign Minister Qureshi yesterday and went into... had a quite extensive discussion on the various issues. I would say the conclusions were as follows:

First, both NATO and Pakistan share the view that we have a common interest in solving the problem of insurgents moving across the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan. And a larger shared interest in addressing the problems of instability and insurgency and extremism and terrorism in Afghanistan, but also in Pakistan, but certainly in Afghanistan, because as Foreign Minister Qureshi put it, these problems will not restrict themselves to Afghanistan. So there is a shared interest in addressing them.

We have quite well developed systems and structures for cooperation between NATO, Afghanistan and Pakistan, including, of course, the Tripartite Commission, but also the Border Coordination Centres, two more of which have just been established on the Afghan side of the border.

Our forces, NATO forces, are coming under attack from across the border. And they must have the ability and the right to defend themselves. The systems that we have in place allow for and encourage effective coordination between Afghan and NATO forces on one side, and Pakistani forces on the other side. Clearly, in the case of this very regrettable incident, where Pakistani soldiers lost their lives, from what I understand, the investigation report should come out even today. So I don't want to preclude what the report's results were, but certainly the initial reports we got included the fact that attempts were made to contact the Pakistani military as the incident was unfolding, and those attempts were unsuccessful so there might well be improvements required in communications.

The Secretary General expressed very clearly to the Foreign Minister his condolences for what happened, his regret that it happened. He, as you saw, expressed his view that the Foreign Minister shared, that we need to step up our cooperation. He also asked that efforts be made to reopen the border crossing at Torkham Gate. For the moment we have sufficient supplies inside of Afghanistan and the closure of the gate has not affected that. We have many ways of bringing supplies into Afghanistan and those many ways are being used.

But certainly it would facilitate things if the gate were to be reopened. It's also the case that it is causing complications inside of Pakistan. A, it's causing an increasing security problem, which the Pakistanis have to deal with. It's putting the drivers at risk and of course they don't get paid until they deliver, so it's having a financial impact on them as well. So we have a shared interest in addressing this problem as well.

Q: Sorry, but I consider some anticipation of the conclusion of this inquiry since that ISAF had violated some rules of his mandate. I don't know if you can confirm that? And also you can confirm that Petraeus, Sedwill just visit very soon Pakistan in order to present their own personal excuses of regret to the Pakistan authorities. Thanks.

James Appathurai: I saw the same article, but I spoke to Ambassador Sedwill 30 minutes before coming here and at that time he had no insight into what the conclusions were of that report. So before the report comes out officially I simply can't comment on it.

Q: (Inaudible...)?

James Appathurai: Oh. No, I don't know whether he's going. But I have to say General Petraeus will be here next week so you can ask him yourself.

Q: Actually, I didn't actually hear that question.

James Appathurai: Whether... there was a press report earlier today, I think, in the Pakistani press, that the report was going to conclude that ISAF had violated the rules of engagement, but it's a press report. I have not seen any official reports.

Q: Have the Pakistanis given you any indication as to when they might reopen that Torkham crossing?

James Appathurai: Honestly speaking, we've heard various projections of when it might open, so I don't want to predict. I don't know.

Q: How long does it need to stay closed before it becomes a real problem? You say you've got enough supplies at the moment.

James Appathurai: Well, for some time, let's put it that way, we can manage, ISAF can manage under the current circumstances. There's another route through Pakistan and there is, of course, the northern route as well as air transport. All of these routes are being used. I might add that, of course, over the past few years, significant efforts have been made to diversify supply lines, so that there's some redundancy and flexibility. And that effort is paying off now and that there are multiple ways to supply our forces.

I might add that ISAF stockpiles substantial amounts of supplies, including fuel, on a regular basis and those supplies were full, so there's quite a bit of redundancy in the system.

Q: James, a couple of things. First off, on Turkey, I remember at the beginning of the month the SecGen said what he had presented to the EU. Has there been any comeback from the EU on that? And if not, will he be urging the Turks to make the first move anyway?

And on the strategic partnerships, the SecGen has said in a couple of his speeches he's highlighted wanting to have security talks with China and India as part or the bigger picture. Are you expecting much discussion on that next week?

James Appathurai: Thank you. I think the Secretary General was pleased to see that the EU Heads of State and Government in their statement at the end of their last meeting, put in... tasked—sorry to use this NATO word—but tasked High Representative Ashton, to develop proposals on how to deepen NATO-EU cooperation. He was very gratified to see that. Both because of the practical effect that that will have. She will now do it. But secondly because it demonstrated that we now have what not only he, but his predecessor always believed was necessary to properly address this problem, and that's the highest level political attention. Now we have that. And that's a very positive development.

So there has been, I think, a response from the European Union and a very positive one. It's also worth noting that, as he says very often, there are 21 common members, so it only makes sense that we should move forward.

I don't think it's a question of who makes the first move. I think it's a question of steps moving in parallel. It's not a question of concessions. It's a question of working out a road map where both or all parties see benefit in moving forward.

So he will wish to, as he does, by the way, in many capitals, raise NATO-EU relations in Ankara.

On the strategic partnerships, you're quite right, he has mentioned that. The phase we're in now is agreeing the language and exactly what the allies, or what NATO, will embrace as direction for... (Bell Sound) There's a cricket! As direction for our partnerships. I'm quite confident, as I said, that it will be forward-leaning, but what exactly the language will be I can't say yet.

What I can guarantee is as soon as the Strategic Concept is agreed the Secretary General will be assigning work to all of us to implement it and that will include on the partnerships.

Partnerships are a two-way street. I'll just conclude with that at this point. Nobody's going to impose partnership on anyone. We can be very open to partnership with important countries like India and China, but they have to want partnership with us, starting with whatever format, structure, level, speed or depth they're comfortable with.

So NATO's not seeking to impose itself on anyone. But we do wish to be very open to dialogue and partnership with countries that share an interest in talking with us.

Q: I have another question on Pakistan. There are now actually daily reports about attacks, convoys being attacked in Pakistan. There's people dying, people shot, whatever. Wouldn't you, as NATO, expect the Pakistanis to do better protection of the convoys?

James Appathurai: Yes, well, I mean, it's a very interesting question, and this comes back to what I said before. Certainly from my point of view the longer these convoys sit unmoving the greater the risk of violence inside Pakistan because they, to a certain extent, are targets. And it causes a security problem on the Pakistani side of the border.

It is up to the Pakistanis, of course, to decide what security they provide. These are not NATO convoys. I think it's important to stress that. These are private individuals who have contracts to supply the Alliance. They're private companies. They're Pakistanis who drive trucks. Or Afghans who drive trucks. But they're not NATO convoys with NATO staff or NATO equipment or a NATO label or NATO legal protection. None of those things apply. They're contracted or sometimes subcontracted.

And they get paid, as I mentioned, when they deliver their product inside of Afghanistan. So these individuals are not being paid until that happens. All this to say, as I say, Pakistan provides for security in its own country, but it is an increasingly complicated situation for the people who are sitting on the road.

Q: On these border incidents, how much has NATO been involved in the process of defending against the security threat to... which we all know about, or have heard about, in Europe? And what is the relationship between these border incidents and those security alerts?

James Appathurai: I am not free to discuss this issue. So, I won't. Sorry. I could waffle around, but there's no point.

Q: Do you say there is no connection between the border incidents and the security alerts in Europe?

James Appathurai: Well, I can say this: The border incidents that relate to NATO forces defending themselves are directly related to self defence of those forces against militants, I think principally associated with the Haqqani network coming across the border and attacking Afghan and international forces.

Q: NATO has a role to defend the Alliance from attack, which would include the sort of threats presumably that we're talking about, so is it actually involved in defending against these attacks in Europe and does that defence extend to the area of Afghanistan and Pakistan?

James Appathurai: I respect your imagination, or skill at phrasing the question three different ways, but I've said what I'm going to say on that. Thanks.

Q: I don't know if you mentioned it earlier, the joint investigation, when will it come out? Will it come out soon? And do you have an idea of how much fuel and value or volume has been destroyed in these attacks and what it means on the ground for the troops in Afghanistan? Does it mean they can't use their Humvees or...?

James Appathurai: As I said, I expect the investigation report to come out, if not today, in the coming days. It should be out any time.

I don't know the volume of fuel. I can tell you that until this particular incident the attacks that we had seen in Pakistan on fuel convoys, and they were not totally exceptional—they did happen from time to time—affected far less than one percent of the supplies going into the country. To give you a vision of how much fuel is being brought in from how many different sources, including from the north, I might add.

And as I mentioned, it is at present having no effect on the tempo or conduct of operations. And that would be the case for quite some period.

Last one.

Q: And yes, the Ministerial of next week, and actually, you said that the Ministers would... well, we need some political guidance on key issues concerning the Strategic Concept. Could you elaborate a little bit more what are these key issues? When we expect precisely... where we need the guidelines?

James Appathurai: Yes, I think I'm going to wait for the Secretary General to do that on Monday morning. He's giving his press conference and he has not directed me as to which key issues. That's a good question. It's his monthly press conference, but I don't know exactly what time it is, but we'll send you out an SMS today. In fact, I'm sure I'll get one in the next five minutes, but he will do his monthly press conference on Monday and he will preview the key issues on the Ministerial.

Q: Just on the report, is that going to be made public?

James Appathurai: No.

Q: Oh.

James Appathurai: Sorry, the report of the incident?

Q: Yes.

James Appathurai: That's a good question. It's a report being developed between the Pakistanis and ISAF. Let me put it this way: I don't now what the procedures are. I would be very surprised, indeed, if at least the Pakistanis didn't make it public, which means it'll probably be made public. But I don't know what has been agreed between the two parties. I don't know, frankly, how we could avoid it, but we'll see.

Thank you.