Press Release (96)43 22 Mar 1996

6th NATO Seminar with Cooperation Partners on Implementation of Conventional Arms Control Agreements From 20th to 22nd March, at the NATO Headquarters, NATO's Verification Coordinating Committee (VCC) hosted its 6th Seminar with Cooperation Partners on cooperation in the verification and implementation of conventional arms control agreements, to include the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty) and the Vienna Document 94. In addition to the sixteen NATO member nations, representatives from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence and heads of national verification organizations from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Poland, Romania, the Russian Federation, Slovakia and Ukraine participated. The 6th Seminar with Partners was the latest in a series of joint seminars and workshops to assess the results of the Programme of Enhanced Cooperation initiated by NATO in January 1993. This Programme, designed to enhance cooperative approaches to implementing conventional arms control agreements, includes four areas of special relevance to the CFE Treaty: joint inspections of declared sites; joint inspections of reductions; joint training courses; and sharing of information stored on NATO's verification data base VERITY. The Seminar was convened at a time when the rules and procedures of the CFE Treaty and the Vienna Document are beginning to be applied in the former Yugoslavia to support the peace process there, and just after completion of the CFE Treaty's Residual Level Validation Period. This was a very important and challenging phase in CFE Treaty implementation, and ended on the 16th March. The Seminar therefore provided the opportunity for participants to review the result of this period, compare national assessments of implementation, and draw lessons for the future. This is important as another key event in conventional arms control, the CFE Review Conference, will start in Vienna in the middle of May. The Seminar was opened by the Deputy Secretary General, Ambassador Sergio Balanzino. Keynote speakers included Ambassadors J.R. Woolsey from the United States, Dr. I. Gyarmati from Hungary, A.H. Alp from Turkey, and Mr. J. Novotny from the Czech Republic. During the Seminar, two workshops reviewed ways and means to improve verification and implementation procedures, including the use of new technologies. Plenary discussion addressed the ongoing programme of cooperation in arms control implementation and verification. For further information, please contact NATO's Verification and Implementation Coordination Section, tel: int'l 32 2 707 44 55.