Madrid, Spain 4 June 2003

Statement at the Press Conference by NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson following the NATO-Russia Council meeting at the Level of Foreign Ministers Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, In my capacity as Chairman of the NRC, it is my pleasure to share with you the results of this session of the NATO-Russia Council of Foreign Ministers. This is a forum for genuine cooperation among true strategic partners with real shared interests. Its importance is reflected in the issues on our agenda: the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, the fight against terrorism, and of course the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The views expressed by the 20 ministers were very close. They confirmed the shared vision of the need to jointly address these key international security challenges. There was a clear willingness to work collectively, and to seek consensus and opportunities for joint action. The Ministers reviewed the first year of NRC cooperation. We have already produced important results on issues of real political and practical value to all of the 20 countries, including crisis management, on theatre missile defence and on airspace management. This level of cooperation in the past would have been inconceivable. We intend to build on the success achieved so far and you can expect more initiatives, more projects benefiting the twenty Council members and the international community as a whole. The NATO-Russia Council is not a debating society. It exists because in today’s world the NATO Allies and Russia need each other more than ever before. Standing together they have the potential to face any threat and I am delighted to say that we are realising that potential. One of the interesting little points in today’s meeting I thought you might be interested in, was that Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov of Russia briefed the NATO Russia Council on the discussions, which took place last weekend between Putin of Russia and President George W. Bush of the United States of America. So Ministers in the Council got briefed from the Russian side and the American side on a vitally important meeting of two world leaders that took place in St. Petersburg and it was interesting that the readout from the meeting was exactly coincidental with both countries, placing a very high premium on the outcome of that particular meeting and of course those two leaders were two of the main driving forces behind the creation of this remarkable body at 20, of the NATO Russia Council. Thank you. Questions and answers Q: Nick Fiorenza, Defense News/Armed Forces Journal. You spoke about areas of co-operation, the most practical example of co-operation between Russia and NATO, in fact, is about to end. Russia is going to withdraw from its operations in the Balkans, in SFOR and KFOR. Are you concerned about that? What future examples of such close co-operation could there possibly be in fact? Lord Robertson: There's no concern about Russia ending its commitment in the Balkans. The Russian authorities have made it clear that it is because of the maturity of the operation, the success of the joint operation, that Russia feels now that it can safely withdraw its troops, they having made a very substantial contribution to bringing peace and stability to that area. Practically all of the armed forces, both of the NATO countries and of Russia, are greatly overstretched at the moment, given what they have to do and the considerable agenda they have to face. So, Russia has made it clear that for reasons of utility, in other words, Russian troops are not so necessary now, as well as the other commitments that they have, that they are taking their troops out of these operations. NATO of course, as you already know, is looking itself at what it does in the Balkans and has already turned over its operation in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the European Union because we believed it had reached a point of maturity when another organization could do that job more appropriately than NATO at this stage. Q: Lord Robertson, did Minister Ivanov express the Russian willingness to cooperate with NATO in Afghanistan? Lord Robertson: Yes. Foreign Minister Ivanov in Moscow, when the NATO-Russia Council met there some four weeks ago, made it clear that Russia welcomes NATO's willingness to take over the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. And the Russians have said that if they can help with that operation then they're more than willing to consider ways in which that can happen. We're looking at the moment to see whether there are appropriate ways in which this could be done. But the goodwill from Russia is much appreciated and I think it, again, very vividly highlights the complete difference in the NATO-Russia relationship from that of a few years ago when it would have been inconceivable that a NATO presence in Afghanistan would have been welcomed by the Russian authorities. We have moved on from those days. We are now dealing with shared assessments, shared threat assessments, as well as with common interests that have to be faced together. Q: Pravda, Russia. Mr. Robertson did you discuss with Mr. Ivanov possible withdrawal of Russian forces from Moldova and Georgia? Lord Robertson: The conditions attached to the ratification of the adapted CFE Treaty include Russian withdrawal from Moldova and from bases in Georgia. Both of these are issues that have been discussed on many occasions inside the NATO-Russia Council. And as you will see from the statement today, we address these points yet again. I reiterate the point that the NATO-Russia Council is not some sort of friendly debating society where we exchange platitudes. There is also an opportunity here, a venue here for disagreement as well, and for discussing the problems and maybe even the misperceptions that exist. And we will continue to talk these through, but progress is being made, and the conditions attached to the Istanbul agreements and we hope that that progress will go onto the point where we will get an adapted treaty that is ratified by all of the states' parties. Q: Japanese News Media. Secretary, did Mr. Ivanov brief also EU-Russia Summit in St. Petersburg in terms of enhancement of security co-operation, namely Galileo and their Russian counterpart, co-operation in air transport, strategy in air transport. If not, what kind of mechanism would be necessary for feedback of all these dialogues? Lord Robertson: Well the NATO-Russia agenda is big enough without us actually trespassing upon the agenda of other relationships that Russia has with other international organizations. But the issue of strategic transport is not one confined to the Russia-EU relationship. NATO at the present moment is looking at the issue of outsized airlift and how we can produce an alternative in Europe before the A400M, the European solution comes along. And among the interim solutions that is being considered by the NATO consortium led by Germany would be access to some of the heavy-lift that is available from Russia and from Ukraine at this time. So these issues are also part, very much part of our agenda which is a very practical agenda. So airspace management and how we develop our co-operation in terms of the capabilities that Russia has to offer in the international marketplace will remain in our agenda and so they should. Q: Dutch Press Association. Mr. Robertson, did you discuss Russia's unease with the possibility of future NATO troops in the Baltic countries? Lord Robertson: Russia's made it clear for some time now that the decision on membership of NATO is a decision that is taken by NATO itself. There are seven nations who have been invited to join NATO and they will become full members of the Alliance, I expect, subject to ratification in a number of parliaments next May. They will then be accepted as full members of the Alliance in every form. In the interim period, Russia, as you know, has expressed its own views about commitments by the four invited countries who are not members of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty as to their future intentions regarding the adapted treaty. All four of those countries -- Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Slovenia -- have all made it clear very publicly that when the adapted treaty is available to be acceded to that they will become party to that. And therefore, the issue of those countries who have been invited and the whole issue of enlargement is not a controversial matter between Russia and NATO.