Moscow 13 May 2003 .MP3/7032Kb

Press conference by NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson following the meeting of the NATO-Russia Council NATO Spokesman: Good morning to all of you and welcome to this press conference with the Secretary General of NATO, Lord Robertson, who will start with a few words and then, he will take a few questions afterwards. Lord Robertson: Thank you. The NATO-Russia Council met today for the first time in Russia, less than one year after the NATO-Russia Council was created in Rome on the 28th of May last year. The vision of our political leaders in Rome was to enhance our ability to work together in areas of common interest and to stand together against common threats and risks to our security. The 20 nations of the NATO-Russia council have gone a long way in the past year to achieve that goal. Ambassadors today exchange views on the situation in Afghanistan and in the Balkans and they express satisfaction with the substantial contributions made by the Russian contingent in both Bosnia and in Kosovo. Ambassadors also discuss preparations for the forthcoming Spring meetings of NATO-Russia Council Ministers, first of all in Madrid, at Foreign Ministers level, and then, at Defence Ministers level, in Brussels. Substantial progress has been made in moving towards practical cooperation in most areas of cooperation which were identified in the joint declaration in Rome. Those include agreed threat assessments on aspects of the terrorist threat to the Euro-Atlantic area, agreement on political modalities for future NATO-Russia peace-keeping operations and a planned procedural exercise to address these modalities. The NATO-Russia Council will also hold a seminar in Berlin in the Autumn on enhancing interoperability on peace-keeping. Substantial progress has been made towards a joint assessment of the threat posed by the proliferation of biochemical and nuclear weapons, which it expects to receive later this year. There has been an agreement on a NATO nuclear experts consultations work plan, with a focus on nuclear weapons safety and security, and ongoing discussions of issues and concerns related to the treaty on conventional forces in Europe. There has been agreement on the first phase of a detailed theatre missile defence interoperability study. We have the signature from earlier this year of the NATO-Russia framework agreement on submarine crew escape and rescue. We have a decision to intensify NATO-Russia co-operation and military training and exercises and concrete progress on co-operation, on logistics, air transport and air-to-air refuelling. We’ve also had a successful seminar on defence reform in Rome and a subsequent decision to develop concrete co-operation, and we follow that up with another seminar, in Moscow last year. We have had a civil emergency exercise: Bogorodsk 2002, hosted by Russia in September 2002, and Ferghana 2003, hosted by Uzbekistan in April of this year. We have the approval today in Moscow of an action plan to enhance co-operation on advanced training in environmental protection, the re-use of former military land, the improvement in the quality of water adjacent to military sites, and environmentally-friendly industrial technology and last but not least, the launch of the co-operative air space initiative to encourage aerospace management safety and transparency. So against that background, we tasked today the NATO-Russia Council preparatory committee, to prepare a detailed report on the first year of the council’s activities and this report will be reviewed by the NATO-Russia Council Foreign Ministers in Madrid on the fourth of June. The NATO-Russia Council today also approved guidelines for funding activities in the framework of the NATO-Russia Council. And finally, the NATO-Russia Council expressed its deep appreciation to the government of the Russian federation for hosting this meeting today. Some people will believe that this list that I have read out is dry, maybe even boring. There will be people who will wonder what some of the technical jargon means and to some, perhaps ordinary, people in the populations of the 20 countries in the NATO-Russia Council, it will appear so technical that it’s not relevant. But I make the point, as the Chairman of the NATO-Russia Council, that this is an agenda of solid, concrete, and productive co-operation. It would have been undreamt of only a few years ago, maybe undreamt of a year ago, but the NATO countries and Russia have come together in the interest of advancing the cause of world peace on a program, not just of words, but of action, of vision, accompanied by concrete and productive outcomes and joint decisions. So this is an agenda for change, an agenda for reform, an agenda for co-operation, which we can be justifiably proud of and is a clear signal of where we intend to go in the future. I can take your questions now. Q: You told us today about the situation around Afghanistan. Could you please tell us very quickly: What can NATO do to ensure stable peace in Afghanistan and, at the same time, what is your assessment of the situation in Afghanistan right now? Thank you. Lord Robertson: The question is a simple one: What can NATO do to help to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan? And the answer is: We can help the International Stability Assistance Force in Kabul with its work, and that is what NATO has already been doing with the Netherlands and Germany, who are the lead nations in ISAF at the moment, and we will be doing more to help Germany and Canada, who will take on responsibility for ISAF from August. There is a world-wide concern about stability in Afghanistan and NATO wants to do its best to help with that stabilization process. Many nations have now served in that part of the world and will continue to do so, but they will now do so within a framework that is organized on a long-term basis by NATO and by its military planners. They will so within the United Nations mandate and will do it in the interest of stability and in close co-operation with the interim administration in Afghanistan. The situation in Afghanistan at the present moment is much better than it has been for many years in the past, but is still filled with risks and there are still dangers that any outbreak of recurring violence could spill over into the surrounding region. That is why the NATO Council believes that it was right to move forward and the Russia authorities have welcomed NATO’s rule in taking on the help we are giving for the International Security Assistance Force. Q: Al Jazeera television station. What is your assessment, Lord Robertson, of the Belgian, French, Luxembourg and German new security bodies? What is your view on this? And second question: What role could NATO play in Iraq after the Saddam Hussein regime has been toppled? Lord Robertson: Members of NATO, members of the European Union are entitled to be involved in their own initiatives if they want. The judgement that I will make on the success or the value of these initiatives will be in the outcome, rather than just the form of meetings. What is needed today in NATO, in the United Nations, in the European Union are capabilities that will allow us to deal with the threat of today and tomorrow, and not the capabilities that we had for the enemies of the past. So for all of us, that is the biggest challenge and therefore, these initiatives can only be judged by what they produce. In the meantime, NATO and the European Union have established formal links together and indeed, we have gone beyond simply linkages on paper, but have co-operated, with the transfer of NATO’s key support operation in Macedonia, being handed over recently to the European Union with NATO assistance. In relation to Iraq, as you will know, at a recent meeting of NATO and European Union Ministers, several Ministers expressed the hope that NATO might become involved in helping NATO members in their desire to assist in post-conflict Iraq, but no decisions have been taken yet, even though no ministers at that meeting were heard to say no to such a role. So when the time is right, the NATO Council will give consideration to whether or not nations wish to be involved, and whether they would need to be assisted by NATO’s procedures and instruments. Q: (inaudible)... Could you please make your comments, or your questions (inaudible)... Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov (inaudible)... especially his worries about conventional forces in Europe which you just said in the beginning, and especially about new NATO members and their forces, what’s going on in these talks between you and Russia. Thank you. Lord Robertson: Well, as you know, four of the invited members of NATO are not, at the present moment, party to the existing treaty on conventional forces in Europe. These are Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia. All of these countries have committed themselves to signing up to the new adapted CFE treaty, when it is available to be signed up too. There are not in a position - they are not permitted to sign up to the old CFE treaty, but they have all publicly declared that they will sign up to the new treaty and NATO has already given, through its commitments in the founding act of 1997, and in the Rome Declaration of last year, has given assurances in relations to... - the newly signed-up members of NATO - in relation to the CFE obligations previously made. Q: (inaudible)... Russian state television. Sir, we all know that the war in Iraq has created certain divisions and disagreements within NATO. Do you think those have been bridged by now, we're left in the past and if not, do you think Russia could play any role in bridging those differences? Thank you. Lord Robertson: NATO is not the only international organization affected by disagreements over Iraq: The United Nations, the European Union, even organizations like the Arab League found that there were differences between their members over this issue. I think that NATO, in many ways, has recovered more quickly from the bruising discussions and debates that took place than other international organizations have, and that is why we moved on so quickly to deal with the requests from NATO member countries who were involved in Afghanistan and that allowed a unanimous decision to be taken by the NATO council on the 16th of April to give full assistance to those countries in their work in the international stabilization assistance effort. I think that the existence of the NATO-Russia Council has prevented differences over Iraq from becoming a crisis, like the NATO-Russia relationship suffered during Kosovo in 1999. It has brought about a new maturity. It has created a new equality and a new respect for each other, so that we are now capable of disagreeing without falling out, of having different opinions without walking out of the room. And I think that that is a very good sign for the future of the international community that the NATO nations and Russia can now have established a working relationship of such durability that it can survive and move on from even passionately held differences of opinion, like the one that recently took place on Iraq. Q: Financial Times. Can you say what, if anything, was discussed in relation to possible NATO action in Iraq this morning, and what hope in the future there would be for this council’s role in discussing peace-keeping operations in Iraq. And secondly, could you just give us the strongest example you can think of where the structure of this council over the last year, with Russia being involved right from the start, has led to Russia making more concrete contributions to decisions? Lord Robertson: Well, we did not discuss Iraq this morning. The agenda was fairly full in talking about Afghanistan and the Balkans. It may come up in the working lunch that is about to start and it may come up in some of the discussions we have this afternoon. The Ambassadors of the 20 will be meeting Defence Minister Ivanov and then, a group from the Russian Duma as well. And if the Iraqi issue is raised, then we will discuss it. In relation to concrete examples, I could point a number of areas: For instance, theatre missile defence, you know, about a year and a half ago, this was regarded... Missile defence was a subject regarded as one of the most devisive in the international community. And then, President Putin handed to me, the Secretary General of NATO, his proposals on missile defence. We’ve now taken those proposals and the proposals of the United States and of the European countries and have brought them together and at the level of theatre missile defence, short-range missile defence, we have got an established new program, perhaps the flagship program of the NATO-Russia Council at the present moment. And I will say to you, as well, on this, not only has that defused this almost theological debate about missile defence - because after all, every country in the 20 recognizes that there is a new threat and there are inadequate defences... But there is another point as well, and that is that co-operation on theatre missile defence involves spending money on the program. It is not just a rhetorical exercise. It is an exercise that involves a cost to all 20 countries and each one of them has been making their financial commitment to that program and frankly, some times, you can judge the success of the program by people putting money where their mouth is. And I think in that respect, I think that this is a major breakthrough area and I think it will enormously productive in the future.