Warsaw, Poland 25 Sept. 2002

Opening Statement by Secretary General Lord Robertson Meeting with the Russian Minister of Defence Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning. Let me start by welcoming Sergey Ivanov to this informal meeting of Defence Ministers. We met last in June for the first NATO-Russia Council meeting at the level of Ministers in Brussels. Only four months later, we can already welcome substantive achievements. Since June the NATO-Russia Council has met twice at the level of Ambassadors. Four new working groups have been created to take forward cooperation in the areas of terrorism, proliferation, theatre missile defence, and airspace management. Experts have also begun work in all of the thirteen areas in which Defence Ministers tasked the NRC to develop specific action plans. We are therefore off to a good start on the road to full implementation of the NRC Work Programme. There is also a new and extremely positive and cooperative character to our joint work. As chairman of the NRC, I am constantly being told that this is the case, particularly within the Staff Support Working Group where Russian and International Staff are working successfully side-by-side. We need to keep this momentum going and sustain our shared interests in the broad range of NRC initiatives. The political will is there. All Ministers around this table need to ensure that it is translated into action at all levels. I will ask the press to leave now.