[ NATO SPEECHES ]

Joint Press
Conference of
Secretary
General
and SACEUR,
NATO
Headquarters,
Monday,
18th Mar. 1996

Joint Press Conference

Secretary General: Good morning ladies and gentlemen,

I would like today to update you on the latest developments regarding IFOR's mission in Bosnia. In particular, I would like to focus on three points:

  • first, IFOR's progress in implementing the military aspects of the Peace Agreement;

  • second, the assistance that IFOR is giving to the civilian aspects;

  • and, third, NATO's concerns regarding the current political situation in Bosnia - an overall assessment.

First, the military implementation of the Peace Agreement. Here IFOR's mission is fully on track. Tomorrow we will reach another important milestone at D+90 when, according to the provisions of the Dayton Peace Agreement, three things are going to take place: first, a new zone of separation will be established along the Inter-Entity Boundary Line. Second, very importantly, the process of transferring areas from one entity to the other will be virtually complete and the 51%-49% allocation of territory will become a reality. And thirdly, all air defence systems must be dismantled and returned to barracks. So, tomorrow is an important day.

It is too early yet for me to give you a compliance report, but every indication we have received is that the parties are continuing to comply and to cooperate with IFOR in the fulfilment of the D+90 requirements. General Joulwan will provide you with more details of the state of the compliance in just a moment. Let me tell you that, as time goes by, with D+90, we all have much more respect for the work that IFOR is doing and its operations.


Once again, I had the opportunity of seeing that by being in the region on Friday. I was in the Sector North and I had the privilege and the opportunity of spending time with the Nordic Brigade which, as you know, is formed by Swedish, Danish and Polish battalions and participated in by more than 10 nations. It is very impressive to see on the ground the multinationality of this Headquarters.

I also had the opportunity to visit the Russian troops. I want to insist how impressive it is to see how the Russian troops are behaving, how professional and cooperative they are, and I want to insist on something that we are not aware of: how in the Posevina Corridor, which as you know is potentially one of the most complicated places, both Russian and Americans are patrolling together. It is something that we have to underline and it is very important to show that cooperation on the ground between NATO and Russia is taking place.

Let me say that this message of cooperation on the ground, which I was able to see and check on Friday, I am going to make very clear to the Russian authorities tomorrow, when I start my official visit to Moscow. The overall general of that part of the northern zone is, as you know, General Nash, an American general, who is doing a very impressive job coordinating all this effort. I want to congratulate him on his job.

Now let me turn to the second subject I would like to touch upon today. It is the question related to the civilian aspects. I want to stress from the very beginning that we have a very close cooperation with Carl Bildt and his office. Let me remind you that he has been in the Council on several occasions. Last Wednesday we had the opportunity of listening to him and I called him to ask him for the most urgent things on which we can cooperate and then to give us in the medium term what would be the possible cooperation that we may have with him.

His most urgent needs are for help with transportation and communications, which we will tackle on Wednesday in the Council and I can tell you that the most probable answer will be that a positive response will be given to the concerns of Carl Bildt on those two aspects. We will continue working on the questions that will go beyond the urgent communication and transportation preoccupations he has.


Let me mention some of the work IFOR is cooperating in, in a very smooth and positive manner. First, reconstruction. Sometimes, this is not very well known: IFOR is working with the World Bank and a variety of non-governmental organisations and has identified over 200 useful projects. It is using the NATO Security Investment Programme for those which are essential to IFOR's mission, such as bridge construction and road repair, and provides staff support for many other projects, especially those that address public works such as power, water and telecommunications.

By D+90 tomorrow, 80% of Bosnia's major roads will be open for use. This is an impressive figure. This is a tremendous asset to freedom of movement, which is after all one of the main concerns that we have and is also very important to give a boost to restarting economic activity.

I saw an instance of IFOR's help to civilian implementation when I was in Tuzla last Friday. I saw how General Nash is restoring railway lines, very important lines that will help not only the IFOR mission but also will be an important asset as far as economic development of the region is concerned.

Let me say a few words about refugees. IFOR has been in continuous liaison with UNHCR and has provided a team for the Humanitarian Assistance Centre. It participates in the Joint Civilian Commission Working Groups on Refugees.

Now to elections and constitutional reform. IFOR provides teams to assist the OSCE, ICRC and the Provisional Election Commission, and consults with local government officials on judicial reforms. Ambassador Frowick, the head of the OSCE Mission, has met with the Council and will be letting us know his specific needs for support in the run-up to the elections and during the elections.

A word on human rights. IFOR provides area security and communications support to the International War Crimes Tribunal, the UNHCR, the European Union Monitoring Mission and other organisations monitoring human rights or investigating war crimes.

On policing. IFOR provides a support team to the International Police Task Force. It coordinates patrolling and has co-located command posts with the international police.


At the same time, IFOR is not a police force and cannot assume responsibility for law and order in places like Sarajevo. But we have naturally been extremely concerned by the situation in Sarajevo as the Serb-held areas have been transferred to the control of the Federation. IFOR has been far from inactive. It has increased its presence in the suburbs where tension is the highest. It has guarded no less than 22 key facilities and, in cooperation with the UNHCR, it has established places of refuge for those who do not feel secure in their own homes. IFOR has also provided escorts for the firefighting forces of the Federation.

Finally, demining. Today SHAPE is hosting a workshop on demining to share expertise in this area which is essential if agriculture and normal economic activity are to develop in Bosnia.

In short, IFOR already has a solid record of support for civilian implementation. We are very happy with that and will continue doing that. This record fully reflects our recognition of the crucial part the civilian aspects will play in the overall success of IFOR. But I must emphasize once again that IFOR's primary mission is to maintain a secure environment. Without a secure environment, the organisations and agencies responsible for civil implementation will not be able to function effectively.

For instance, although we must be pleased that Sarajevo is once again a united city, the way this has come about is a terrible blow for our vision of a multiethnic Bosnia. In forcing people to leave, the Bosnian Serb authorities have behaved abominably and the actions of the Federation authorities have been far from reassuring. The Federation has a responsibility to put an immediate stop to the atmosphere of lawlessness and intimidation and deploy more police in the suburbs handed over.

Another concern is Brcko where thousands of Serb refugees have arrived from Sarajevo. Under the Peace Agreement, the future status of Brcko and the Posavina Corridor is to be decided by arbitration. We must prevent Brcko from becoming a new flashpoint that could undermine the delicate balance reflected in the Dayton settlement.

Finally, the Federation continues to have problems in developing. Not all the news is bad - for instance there has been progress in Mostar and also in building the new political structures of the Federation. But we need to maintain pressure on the political leaders of both Bosnia and Croatia to keep the Federation moving forward. The meeting today in Geneva and of the Contact Group in Moscow this weekend thus come at a very good time and should generate exactly this necessary pressure.

Let me now hand over to SACEUR before we take your questions.


SACEUR: Thank you, Secretary General, and thank you for those kind words about the troops. Today, ladies and gentlemen, it is D+89. The final report on D+90 will be made by those commanders in Bosnia tomorrow but I can report to you that the trend is very positive, and I would like to refer to two charts to show you where we are at this very important milestone in Operation Joint Endeavour.

I think it is extremely important that we go back and look at what has been accomplished in just three short months since we had to move about 60,000 forces, 3,000 air sorties, 400 trains and about 50 ships of materiel and troops into Bosnia at the very worst time of year. What have we accomplished? I think it is very important that we not only had initially a four kilometre separation zone that had to be complete by D+30, and it was, and all foreign forces have withdrawn.

Then we had a ten kilometre separation zone and that now has been accomplished. So we have ten kilometres on a thousand kilometre front where the forces have separated. There is breathing room between the forces. But those missions just don't go away. The IFOR must maintain that separation, must maintain no forces and heavy weapons in that zone of separation; that is part of their mission for as long as they are there. And as we saw in one brigade area on Friday in Bosnia, one brigade area had 12-14 platoon size patrols - one brigade having that just in one area - to make sure they accomplish their mission. So this will continue and that is what we are trying to do.

The next phase which is very important is that between now and D+120 a very significant phase must take place. The former warring factions will now pull back into cantonement areas and their forces will be placed in barracks. This will be very significant because we now will go from just separation to where their forces will no longer be out manoeuvring in the countryside. They will be back in cantonement area barracks. That is the next phase that IFOR must accomplish, very difficult, but so far, the progress towards D+120 compliance looks good. So I wanted to give you that overview.


Now, to amplify what the Secretary General talked about, clearly of great importance to us and to the civilian agencies: if you remember my first briefing, I talked about phases. Phase 1 was entry - we have done that - or preparation. Phase 2 was entry. Phase 3 was implementation and the end of Phase 3 is when there will be total freedom of movement throughout the whole country. The Secretary General mentioned that 80 per cent of the roads are open. This is what that looks like at D+90.

Our goal by D+120 is to have all these roads open, so that there is total freedom of movement in one country, not just in two entities and we're working towards that now. This is part of our mission when that occurs and humanitarian groups, non-governmental organisations, UNHCR, the International Tribunal can move out across the whole country. The forces of the former warring factions should be in their cantonement areas - we're trying to clear the mines off these roads - and the country opens up. That's our goal by D+120. And if we can do that, we will go a long way then in having reconstruction and the humanitarian agencies being able to canvass the entire country and do what they were sent there to do.

So I wanted to give you this brief overview at D+90, where we want to go by D+120 and what do we mean by freedom of movement and how to open up the country.



Qs & As

Alexandre Mineev, ITAR TASS: Secretary General, after you visited Russian and American troops in Posavina in Bosnia, what conclusion do you draw, and what political message will you bring to the Russian leadership in Moscow? Secretary General: Let me say once again that I was very impressed by the behaviour of the Russian troops. They are very professional, they are cooperating in a very constructive manner and as I said before - and I think it is very impressive - at this time we have platoons which are patrolling, which are a mix of Russian and American soldiers, in a complicated place: around the Posavina Corridor.

I think we have to draw a conclusion from this good cooperation which is happening on the ground and try to convince each other, in particular the Russian Federation authorities, that this cooperation which is taking place on the ground, there is no reason why it should not continue on other levels and that will be the message that I would like to send to President Yeltsin and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Defence and all the people I am going to be seeing during those two and a half days I will be in Moscow.

As you know, I wanted to visit Moscow as soon as possible. I have not yet finished the visits to all the sixteen capitals but I wanted to show the interest of NATO, the interest of the Secretary General, to the authorities in Moscow and show that we want to cooperate as closely as possible, as widely as possible, with the Russian Federation.


Teresa Turiera, Catalunya Radio: Secretary General, if one of the basic objectives of IFOR is to maintain a secure environment in Bosnia and also that has to go on after IFOR leaves, do you agree with the American decision to help finance the rearmament of the Bosnian army? Do you think NATO should have a functional role only?

Secretary General: In answer to your first question: as you know, Annex 1B of the Dayton Agreement talks about that, talks about the balance of forces. Therefore we have to, at the end of the day when the operation is over, to have an equilibrium of forces at the lowest level possible. That is the aim that every country has in mind: an equilibrium of forces, let me insist again, at the lowest possible level. Let me answer your second question with a simple "no", NATO has nothing to do with it and IFOR has nothing to do with it.

Jacek Safuta, Polish Press Agency: This is a follow-up question: you mean that there are no guidelines for IFOR concerning supply of arms? If IFOR sees any transport of arms, what happens, what are the instructions?

Secretary General: As you know, now the UN Security Council Resolution on the embargo of arms is no longer in application, therefore IFOR troops have no guidance for that, as long as it is maintained within Annex 1B of the Dayton Agreement and within the negotiation that is taking place in Vienna.

Francesco Mattioli, RAI: This question is to both of you: in view of the preoccupation the Secretary General has placed on the situation in the Federation, does any contingency planning contemplate in any way the break-up of the Federation? What will IFOR do? Secondly, a follow-up to the preceding question on Russian troops: do they appear to you as far as you can judge a little better than those brought in in Chechnya?


Secretary General: Let me answer the second part of the question first. Without any doubt, the behaviour, the professionalism of the troops deployed in Bosnia is very high, SACEUR can probably elaborate on that because he has been there on more occasions than I have. And as far as the Federation is concerned, our preoccupation is, of course, at the moment with places of potential tension in the Federation, but we do hope and we are going to do our best for the Federation to be maintained. At the meeting today of Secretary Christopher in Geneva - it is an important meeting in order to put pressure on all the parties and in particular those which are responsible for maintaining the Federation, so that it stays together. With that, I think, in a prudent manner, I answered your question.

SACEUR: I would just add a comment on the Russian troops. I have visited them on several occasions now. I think you would have been impressed with what we saw at the Russian briefing and in the other brigades that we saw there. The Nordic-Polish brigade, the Turkish brigade, the American brigades, the commonality of the briefings, the maps, the operational procedures: all common. The Russian forces have adapted very well to that. I was very much impressed with what they're doing on flank coordination, where Russian and American forces are jointly conducting patrols together.

This is not easy to do, but it's being done extremely well. I think there's a certain pride in the Russian force that I think is very good to see. The way their barracks area looks, the way they conduct themselves, it's very reassuring that we have high-calibre forces here in IFOR and they know that because they're with high-calibre forces as well from other countries. So I think we have a great opportunity here to build the relationship at the soldier to soldier level and that seems to be taking place now and there is very good contact at that level.

Serguei Anissimov RIA-Novosti: M. Secrtaire gnral, concernant la visite Moscou, est-ce que c'est pour vous la rencontre la plus importante et quelles sont les questions les plus importantes pour vous discuter Moscou. Est-ce que vous allez discuter les applications de l'accord sur les armes conventionelles?


Secretary General: La rencontre la plus importante c'est avec le Prsident Eltsine, avec le Ministre des Affaires trangres, M. Primakov et avec le Ministre de la Dfense, M. Grachev. Aprs la visite la Douma, je donnerai une confrence au Centre des tudes stratgiques Moscou. Aprs, l'OTAN va offrir une rception l'Ambassade de France, qui s'occupe de nos relations avec la Russie. Ca sera une visite trs complte, du point de vue des entretiens avec les personnalits importantes politiques et de la vie sociale. Aprs les messages, les messages sont clairs. L'OTAN veut maintenir une relation trs profonde avec la Russie, maintenir une relation ouverte et construire une relation qui est trs importante pour la scurit europenne. C'est le message que je voudrais transmettre mes interlocuteurs, c'est le message le plus important. Mais je crois qu'on discutera sur quelques autres questions.

Jonathan Clayton, Reuters: Secretary General, it's been said recently that the failure to discuss the exit strategy, post-IFOR strategy, is actually undermining the successful outcome of the whole mission. Would you agree with that and also why should a refugee in Germany return home at the moment when there is no suggestion from the international community of what will follow? And secondly for General Joulwan, I'd like to ask him if he will be taking advantage of the freedom of movement and indeed the cantonement of the opposing forces, to perhaps make more of an effort to arrest General Mladic and Radovan Karadzic?

Secretary General: The first part of your question: I disagree completely with you - very kindly - but I disagree. I don't think that the fact that we are not debating now publicly what is going to happen after D+366 is a mistake. On the contrary, I think that we have a mission that has been well planned for a year's duration from the military point of view and we are going to do our best to comply with that engagement, with that commitment that we have.


After 365 days, many things can happen. It seems to me that being as we are at D+90 and with the success as far as the military operation is concerned, the best message we can give to those and in particular those refugees you are thinking of, tell them that the mission is on track that we are going to maintain the environment of security and he has to contribute to the reconstruction of his country and to the construction of a united Bosnia-Herzegovina. That's our aim and we are going to put our forces behind that idea, behind those aims.

SACEUR: I'm very glad you understood what I'm trying to say on freedom of movement. I think the best signal we can give is to get our force out in the entire country, so they don't stop along an Inter-Entity Boundary, that we move out to the international borders. I think this is the sort of message that we want to give to have people return and to really start life coming back into the country. As far as arresting Mladic is concerned, and other indicted war criminals, my guidance from the North Atlantic Council is very clear: we will detain those that come in contact with us as we are doing our duties and turn them over to the International Tribunal.

What we do have in posters and information and pictures and descriptions we have turned over to the troops but I think you have to be very careful when soldiers start arresting people. That really is a job for the international police and soldiers in history have not been very good at this. And so I think we have to be very careful and so my instructions are very clear and we're operating within those instructions, but we're not going to go chasing down indicted war criminals.

Gyrgy Foris, Hungarian News Agency: General Joulwan, 10,000 people are fleeing from Sarajevo. Meanwhile, some parts of the district are repeatedly in flames. Don't you think this can spoil your success and first of all it can endanger your success in the future? And Secretary General, it's quite obvious that there is a huge disagreement between the United States and the European Allies on rearmament problems in Bosnia. Aren't you afraid that it can constrain solidarity inside the Alliance in a critical period?


SACEUR: I could try to answer the first one: it's a tragedy that so many are fleeing the Sarajevo suburbs and it's unfortunate that much of that was caused by some pressure from officials in Pale as well. However, I think if we could continue to create the conditions in Sarajevo where there is a multiethnic society, if we can get the gas and the water and the electricity working throughout the city, I think we may see people eventually coming back.

But we all knew this would be a very difficult part of our mission. I think we have to wait and see as it relates to the success of our mission, but everything is being done. We are trying to help with expanded presence in some of the suburbs. As you know, I hope you know, there is very little, if any, firefighting equipment in the suburbs. The water pressure in the hydrants does not let you get past the third or fourth floor in some cases, it is a very tough situation, but IFOR is trying to help, working with the International Police Task Force and Federation police to do the best they can and they did arrest some people yesterday that were looting and that were involved in arson. I think we just have to wait and see how the exodus will affect the long-term success of our mission.

Secretary General: Clearly there is not an agreement between the European Union and the United States about the "equip and train", as seen in the conference in Ankara, but that has nothing to do with NATO. As I said before, NATO has nothing to do with this part of Annex 1B of the Dayton Agreement. It's something for the countries to do and there are countries that do want to continue to do that, and other countries that do not want to, but it will not bring any difficulty here at NATO, in the Council, it has not caused any difficulty for the moment and I hope that there will not be any difficulty in the future, because it's not a question to be debated here at NATO.


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