Communiqué NATO M-NAC- 2(94)116 Issued at the Ministerial Meeting of the North Atlantic Council NATO Headquarters, Brussels 1 Dec. 1994

Final Communiqué We have met today in Brussels for the first time under our new Chairman and the Alliance's new Secretary General, Mr. Willy Claes. We paid tribute to the outstanding achievements of the late Secretary General, Dr. Manfred Wörner, who served the Alliance with great distinction, leadership and vision. We have noted the progress achieved in implementing the January 1994 NATO Summit decisions with regard to Partnership for Peace, our full support for the development of the European Defence and Security Identity and for the Western European Union, the development of the Combined Joint Task Forces concept, our approach to the problem of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems, and the Mediterranean region. However, much remains to be done. We discussed today the essential role NATO continues to play in reinforcing stability and security in Europe. NATO has always been a political community of nations committed to promoting shared values and defending common interests. These and NATO's defensive capabilities are the firm foundation which make it possible for the Alliance to contribute to stability and cooperation in the whole of Europe. A strong trans-Atlantic partnership and a continued substantial presence of United States forces in Europe, as reconfirmed by the January Summit, are fundamental not only to guarantee the Alliance's core functions but also to enable our Alliance to contribute effectively to European security. We are committed to continuing the process of adaptation of the Alliance, which began in 1990 and was carried forward at the Summit in the context of a broad approach to building political, military and economic stability for all European countries. We will continue to consult closely and in an open manner with all our Partners about the evolution of the security architecture of Europe. Allies have already taken important steps to expand cooperation through the North Atlantic Cooperation Council and through the decisions of the January 1994 Summit, including the creation of the Partnership for Peace. Partnership for Peace is developing into an important feature of European security, linking NATO and its Partners and providing the basis for joint action with the Alliance in dealing with common security problems. Active participation in the Partnership for Peace will also play an important role in the evolutionary process of the expansion of NATO.

We are pleased with the rapid progress to date in the implementation of Partnership for Peace. Twenty-three countries so far have joined the Partnership. Ten Individual Partnership Programmes have been agreed and several more are close to completion. The Partnership Coordination Cell at Mons is fully operational and practical planning work has begun, especially with regard to the preparation for Partnership exercises in 1995. Together with Allies, eleven Partner countries already have appointed Liaison Officers at the Cell. Partner countries' representatives have taken up their dedicated office facilities in the new Manfred Wörner Wing at NATO Headquarters. We strongly encourage full Partner participation both at NATO Headquarters and in the Partnership Coordination Cell. The three Partnership for Peace exercises held this Autumn with broad participation by both Allied and Partner nations launched a practical military cooperation that will improve our common capabilities. We will tomorrow present to our Partners a substantial exercise programme for next year. We welcome and encourage the large and growing number of exercises nationally sponsored in the spirit of Partnership for Peace. We also welcome and endorse a defence planning and review process within the Partnership, based on a biennial planning cycle, which will advance interoperability and increase transparency among Allies and Partners, and invite Partners to participate in a first round of this process beginning in January 1995. We have also tasked the Council in Permanent Session, the NATO Military Authorities and the Partnership Coordination Cell to expedite the implementation of the Individual Partnership Programmes. We reaffirm our commitment to provide the necessary resources. In this regard, we have requested the Council in Permanent Session to examine how best to allocate, on an annual basis, existing resources within the NATO budgets to support the Partnership and to report back to us at our Spring meeting. We have also noted the effort of Allies to provide substantial bilateral assistance in support of Partnership objectives and agreed to exchange information on our respective national efforts with a view to ensuring the maximum effectiveness in their use. However, all this can only supplement, not replace, the efforts of Partners to undertake the short-term and long-term planning necessary to fund their own participation in Partnership for Peace. Our Heads of State and Government reaffirmed that the Alliance, as provided for in Article 10 of the Washington Treaty, remains open to membership of other European states in a position to further the principles of the Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area. We expect and would welcome NATO enlargement that would reach to democratic states to our East, as part of an evolutionary process, taking into account political and security developments in the whole of Europe. Enlargement, when it comes, would be part of a broad European security architecture based on true cooperation throughout the whole of Europe. It would threaten no one and would enhance stability and security for all of Europe. The enlargement of NATO will complement the enlargement of the European Union, a parallel process which also, for its part, contributes significantly to extending security and stability to the new democracies in the East. Accordingly, we have decided to initiate a process of examination inside the Alliance to determine how NATO will enlarge, the principles to guide this process and the implications of membership. To that end, we have directed the Council in Permanent Session, with the advice of the Military Authorities, to begin an extensive study. This will include an examination of how the Partnership for Peace can contribute concretely to this process. We will present the results of our deliberations to interested Partners prior to our next meeting in Brussels. We will discuss the progress made at our Spring meeting in The Netherlands.

We agreed that it is premature to discuss the timeframe for enlargement or which particular countries would be invited to join the Alliance. We further agreed that enlargement should strengthen the effectiveness of the Alliance, contribute to the stability and security of the entire Euro-Atlantic area, and support our objective of maintaining an undivided Europe. It should be carried out in a way that preserves the Alliance's ability to perform its core functions of common defence as well as to undertake peacekeeping and other new missions and that upholds the principles and objectives of the Washington Treaty. In this context, we recall the Preamble to the Washington Treaty: "The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments. They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area. They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security." All new members of NATO will be full members of the Alliance, enjoying the rights and assuming all obligations of membership. We agreed that, when it occurs, enlargement will be decided on a case-by-case basis and that some nations may attain membership before others. We affirm our commitment to reinforce cooperative structures of security which can extend to countries throughout the whole of Europe, noting that the enlargement of NATO should also be seen in this context. Against this background, we wish to develop further our dialogue and consolidate our relations with each of our Partners. Having just overcome the division of Europe, we have no desire to see the emergence of new lines of partition. We are working towards an intensification of relations between NATO and its Partners on the basis of transparency and on an equal footing. NATO's right to take its own decisions, on its own responsibility, by consensus among its members will in no way be affected. A cooperative European security architecture requires the active participation of Russia. We reaffirm our strong support for the political and economic reforms in Russia, and we welcome the considerable contributions that Russia can make towards stability and security in Europe on a wide range of issues. We also reaffirm our commitment to developing a far-reaching relationship, corresponding with Russia's size, importance and capabilities, both inside and outside the Partnership for Peace, based on mutual friendship, respect and benefit, and we are encouraged by the progress and plans that have been made in the various elements of that relationship. We welcome also an initial programme of consultations and cooperation between the Alliance and Russia, on the basis of the Summary of Conclusions of 22 June 1994 agreed at the meeting of Russian Foreign Minister A. Kozyrev with the Council, in areas where Russia has a unique or particularly important contribution to make. In this context and with the aim of increasing European and global security, we propose using the opportunity of our regular Ministerial meetings to meet with Russian Ministers whenever useful. In the same spirit, we also propose that our experts discuss key issues like true partners. We welcome the completion of the withdrawal of Russian troops from Germany and the Baltic States, which represents a significant contribution to security as well as benefitting general stability in Europe. We also welcome the agreement between the Russian Federation and Moldova which provides for the withdrawal of the Russian 14th Army from the territory of Moldova.

We attach considerable importance to developing our relationship with Ukraine. An independent, democratic and stable Ukraine is of great importance for European security and stability. We are pleased that Ukraine was involved in the two Partnership for Peace field exercises in Poland and in The Netherlands. We look forward to the completion of its Individual Partnership Programme. We want to develop our cooperation with Ukraine still further. We welcome the Ukrainian Parliament's vote in favour of Ukraine's accession to the NPT, which is a fundamental step to enable this country to accede to the NPT as a non- nuclear weapon state. We meet only four days before the Budapest CSCE Summit, a crucial opportunity to progress further towards our vision of a Europe whole and free. We will work individually and collectively to ensure that the CSCE fulfils effectively the vital role it should have in the construction of an inclusive security architecture. The Helsinki Accords and other CSCE documents remain the basic definition of our common goals and standards, and the CSCE defines both the values and goals of a broad community of security and cooperation. NATO respects and upholds the principles of the CSCE. The CSCE has developed useful methods for conflict prevention and preventive diplomacy which provide the important first line of efforts to attack the root causes of conflict. Much progress has been made in this direction since the 1992 Helsinki Summit, but the challenges have expanded since then. As a regional arrangement under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, the CSCE should play a key role for conflict prevention and crisis management and resolution in its area. In accordance with Article 52 of the UN Charter, CSCE Participating States should make every effort to achieve the peaceful settlement of local disputes through the CSCE before referring them to the UN Security Council. We support the objectives of the forthcoming CSCE Summit to: reinforce our commitment to the CSCE as the comprehensive forum for consultation and cooperation in Europe; strengthen further the CSCE's capabilities, including in decision-making, and effectiveness; adopt substantial agreements reached in the Forum for Security Cooperation: the Code of Conduct on Security Matters, the agreement on global exchange of military information and the increased focus on non-proliferation issues, together with a further enhancement of the Vienna Document on confidence-building measures, which will represent a solid step forward in the field of arms control and cooperative security; develop further the CSCE's capabilities in early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and peacekeeping; reaffirm and strengthen the CSCE's fundamental role in the protection of human rights and the promotion of democratic institutions; foster good neighbourly relations through the conclusion of bilateral and regional agreements between and among Participating States; and enhance transparent and effective arms control and confidence-building measures throughout the CSCE area and at regional levels.

We fully support the activities of the CSCE to achieve a peaceful solution to the conflict in and around Nagorno-Karabakh. This will be an opportunity to demonstrate the political determination of all the Participating States to put the CSCE principles into practice. We welcome the success of the process initiated in Paris for the conclusion of a Pact for Stability in Europe. The launching of two "regional tables" has demonstrated the progress that rapprochement among European states can bring. This initiative makes a substantial contribution to stability in our continent. We recommend continuation of this close co-operation for conclusion of the Pact for Stability in Europe, as an active contribution to good neighbourly relations in Central and Eastern Europe. We welcome the endorsement by the WEU Council of Ministers in Noordwijk of preliminary conclusions on the formulation of the common European Defence Policy taking also into account the results of the NATO Brussels Summit. We welcome the WEU's decision to initiate reflection on the new European security conditions, including the proposal put forward by France that this should lead to a white paper on European security. We attach great importance to the process of cooperation that NATO and the WEU are engaged in, aimed at the effective implementation of the Summit results, especially with regard to the Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTF) concept and the possibility of making assets and capabilities of the Alliance available to the WEU. We take note that a report on criteria and procedures for effective use of CJTF has been prepared by the WEU and presented to a joint Council meeting of NATO and the WEU on 29 June 1994. We have taken note of the work undertaken on the development of the CJTF concept, which is an essential part of the Alliance's continuing effort to adapt and adjust its structures and procedures, in order to conduct more efficiently and flexibly the Alliance's missions, including peacekeeping, to provide separable but not separate military capabilities that could be employed by NATO or the WEU and to facilitate operations with participating nations outside the Alliance. Much remains to be done to adapt Alliance structures and procedures and, in this context, to develop the CJTF concept, and to move the whole process forward as quickly as necessary. Work is in hand to develop this concept in detail, in coordination with the WEU and with the advice of the NATO Military Authorities, as a means to implement the Alliance's readiness to make its collective assets available, on the basis of consultations in the North Atlantic Council, for WEU operations. We have tasked the Council in Permanent Session to continue its work and to examine ways that would enable further development of the CJTF concept, including, as soon as appropriate, through pilot trials and look forward to a progress report at our next meeting. Work on the Summit initiative on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery means has been taken forward through the creation of the Joint Committee on Proliferation and two expert groups, the Senior Politico-Military Group on Proliferation and the Senior Defence Group on Proliferation. We took note of the report of the Joint Committee on Proliferation on the work undertaken by these Groups, which is based on the basic principles of the Alliance Policy Framework that we adopted and made public at our Istanbul Ministerial. We welcome the progress made in intensifying and expanding NATO's political and defence efforts against proliferation, which remains one of the greatest concerns for the Alliance. We have instructed that the Groups should move forward in implementing their agreed work programmes in order to examine, without replacing or duplicating efforts underway in other fora, the means available to prevent and respond where necessary to proliferation, and to facilitate NATO defence activities in the field of proliferation. We look forward to another progress report at our meeting in May. We welcome the consultations with all Cooperation Partners in the framework of the NACC and look forward to ad hoc consultations with Russia on proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery. We remain fully committed to the indefinite and unconditional extension of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) at next year's Extension and Review Conference. We urge the other States Parties to the Treaty to do likewise. We will continue to support other ongoing efforts to strengthen the international non-proliferation system. In this context, we urge other states yet to accede to the Treaty to do so well before the upcoming NPT Conference. We will also work to enhance the verification regime for the NPT. In this context, we consider the recent "agreed framework" between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as a step towards bringing the Democratic People's Republic of Korea into full compliance with its NPT commitments and as a contribution towards the maintenance of peace and stability in the region. We continue to attach particular importance to full compliance with and fulfilment of all obligations resulting from existing disarmament and arms control agreements. In this context, we welcome the successful completion of the second reduction phase of the CFE Treaty. This Treaty, which remains the cornerstone for European security and stability, must be fully and firmly implemented and its integrity must be preserved. The process of elimination of former Soviet weapons of mass destruction must rapidly be advanced further. We welcome the contribution made by some Allies to that effect. We attach great importance to the negotiation of a universal and verifiable Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It is also important to achieve a universal ban on the production of fissile material for weapons purposes. We continue to consider as essential tasks the early entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the elaboration of measures to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention. Noting the importance of the Open Skies Treaty in promoting openness and transparency of military forces and activities, we reiterate our hope that all signatories who have not yet ratified the Treaty will do so and that all instruments of ratification necessary for the entry into force of the Treaty will be deposited at the earliest possible time. We reaffirm the importance we attach to developments around the Mediterranean. At our meeting in Athens we encouraged all efforts for dialogue and cooperation which aim at strengthening stability in this region. In this context, we welcome the recent positive steps in the Middle East peace process, which will help remove the obstacles to a more constructive relationship between the countries of the region as a whole. The NATO Summit in January reiterated the conviction that security in Europe is greatly affected by security in the Mediterranean. As agreed at our meeting in Istanbul, we have examined proposed measures to promote dialogue and are ready to establish contacts, on a case-by-case basis, between the Alliance and Mediterranean non-member countries with a view to contributing to the strengthening of regional stability. To this end, we direct the Council in Permanent Session to continue to review the situation, to develop the details of the proposed dialogue and to initiate appropriate preliminary contacts. We deplore the continuing conflict in Bosnia, which has brought about large-scale suffering, most recently in and around the Safe Area of Bihac. We reiterate our strong support for the continued efforts of the international community, including those of the Contact Group, in attempting to bring peace to the region. We continue to believe that the conflict must be settled at the negotiating table. We call on the Bosnian Serbs and all those forces which support them to end their offensive in Bihac and on all parties to agree to and honour a cease-fire and allow humanitarian aid to flow to that beleaguered population and throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Bosnian Serbs should immediately and without conditions release all UN personnel currently being denied freedom of movement. We reaffirm our commitment to provide close air support for UNPROFOR and to use NATO air power, in accordance with existing arrangements with the United Nations. We will continue, together with the WEU, the maritime embargo enforcement operations in the Adriatic. We are determined to maintain Alliance unity and cohesion as we work together with the international community to find a just and peaceful solution in Bosnia and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia. The situation in Southern Caucasus continues to be of special concern. We welcome the ceasefire that has been established, but lasting peaceful and just solutions to ongoing conflicts in the region, particularly in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, can only be reached under the aegis of the UN and through CSCE mechanisms. We hope that the CSCE will be in a position to contribute effectively to the peace process on Nagorno-Karabakh, including through the establishment of a CSCE multinational peacekeeping operation based on the principles of Chapter III of the Helsinki Document 1992. We reiterate the Alliance's condemnation of international terrorism as stated at the NATO Summit in January. We reaffirm our commitment to the Alliance's common-funded programmes. We consider these programmes vital elements in underpinning our military structures, providing essential operating capability and strengthening Alliance cohesion. We have directed the Council in Permanent Session, taking account of the Fundamental Review of the Military Budget and the Civil Budget Priorities Review, to engage in a wide-ranging examination of Alliance budgetary management, structures and procedures to ensure that the appropriate resources are directed towards the programmes which will have the highest priority and to report initially at the Spring session. The Spring 1995 meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Ministerial Session will be held in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, in May.