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Updated: 26-May-2005 NATO Speeches

Åre, Sweden

25 May 2005

Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Security Forum

Working Luncheon chaired by the Deputy Secretary General, with the participation of all delegates

AMBASSADOR ALESSANDRO MINUTO-RIZZO (Deputy Secretary General, NATO):Welcome to our luncheon discussion. You have all participated this morning in one of the four panels, and I hope that you had useful and stimulating discussions. I had a very nice discussion in my panel.

I would like now to try and bring together some of the common themes that have emerged from these panel discussions and I will also invite you to comment upon the issues raised in the panels which you were not able to attend this morning.

To set the context for our discussion, I will now invite the rapporteur from each panel to present the major points raised in discussion and then I will open the floor to you. So, let me now invite your rapporteurs to take the floor to summarize the main points that emerged from this morning's panel discussions.

First I would like to invite Jaroslaw Skonieczka who is the director for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Partnership in NATO's International Staff to highlight the major points raised in the first panel which covered "Addressing Europe's unresolved conflicts".

I would ask each rapporteur to speak from five to eight minutes, after that and after all the rapporteurs will have made their report, I will invite you to make comments on what you heard, I hope if you agree or you disagree or you have something specific to say, and after that of course I will ask you if you have general points to make which are not necessarily linked to the four panels. That's the way I intend to proceed and in conclusion, bon appetit (inaudible). So, Mr Skonieczka, you have the floor.

JAROSLAW SKONIECZKA (Director, Euro-Atlantic Integration & Partnership Directorate, Political Affairs and Security Policy Division, NATO): Right. In the spotlight at last. Thank you, Mr. Secretary General, ministers, ambassadors, ladies and gentlemen.

I have the pleasure report on a panel on Europe's unsolved conflicts, and the pleasure is limited only by the complexity of this task. But I can say that we really had a good debate and I think that if we had a panel on Europe's unsolved mysteries it would not be more fascinating.

And of that debate I can only give you a very fragmentary and very imperfect account. Minister Rotfeld of Poland was the first panellist and he reflected on the sources of today's- of modern conflict and of sources of our problems in dealing with these conflicts, and he identified two.

One is the irrationality inherent in human nature, another is the failure of the international community to find the conceptual framework and therefore also a political framework for addressing the domestic sources of modern conflicts and the domestic sources in his view are at the roots of most issues, most conflicts that we are dealing with.

So, the practical policy need is for developing such a concept of how the international community can help solve domestic- to bring domestic peace as a precondition of international peace.

And in this context he made two remarks. He said that two factors are important.

First, that in trying to fix states there is no single solution, no perfect model applicable to each and every state.

Second, that the role of great power is crucial, of great powers and their relationship to international institutions. He opined that so far, great powers have used international institutions as they serve their interest. The trick is how to persuade the great powers to put their resources at the service of international institutions. How to persuade them to let international institutions to use them in solutions in solving international conflicts.

In terms of practical recommendations of suggestions, Mr. Rotfeld made an interesting proposal: That we should, as the Euro-Atlantic community, consider establishing a Euro-Atlantic research centre or peaceful resolution centre, or conflict resolution centre which I understand would be closely tied to NATO, to the EAPC and which would be the intellectual, conceptual centre looking for not necessarily academic answers to conflicts, but for pragmatic, very practical pragmatic answers to the conflicts themselves, but also to the question of how the international community, how NATO and the EAPC can contribute to today's settlement.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Mr. Tarasyuk, was next and he identified key common features of all the unfrozen or frozen conflicts, the unsolved conflicts that we are dealing with.

One is that they all originate- their origins are all in the past imperial policies of the Soviet Union.

Second, they are all characterized by the military presence of foreign troops.

Third, that most of them are characterized by the presence of corrupt regimes who are obstacles to solutions.

And fourth, they have a common character- fourth, common characteristics--they cannot be solved by the involved parties themselves. Therefore, international involvement by international institutions is crucial.

In this context he stressed the role of GUUAM and its willingness and ability of these organisations to contribute to democratization, to stability and eventually to integration of the wider Black Sea region into Europe.

He also had a number of practical proposals. He believed that both NATO and the EAPC could and should be involved in the search for solutions and solve conflicts and he named a few proposals for your consideration, including creating an EAPC ad hoc group for unsolved conflicts, launching a partnership action plan on unsolved conflicts, continuing informal debate on this issue at one of a future apex(?), perhaps in Ukraine, perhaps creating posts of NATO/EAPC liaison officers in states which face problems of unsolved conflicts, and eventually by launching NATO's dialogue with GUUAM as one of the organisations which is already contributing to stability and security in the region.

Mr. Sergei Karaganov the Chairman of the Council for Foreign Defence Policy was the next speaker, and he said that to a large degree the problem of unsolved conflicts is the problem of unrecognized states but he stressed that this is not a new problem. This is a problem known to the international community for many decades, and we should not a priori deny these states or these separatist enclaves the right to statehood.

He said that there are many ways to solve the conflicts. Either by reunification, by dialogue, by force, by the will of the people, or by recognition of these states and he believed that no single solution applies, that we should be flexible and creative in addressing these issues one by one and perhaps in some cases these enclaves, separatist enclaves should be recognized as states.

He stressed the positive role of Russia in freezing these conflicts for he said unfreezing these conflicts may actually be dangerous. And Russia, as he said in his words, has been the best peacekeeper in the world being able to freeze these conflicts and prevent bloodshed.

Russia has nothing against involvement of international institutions in the solution of these problems, but the key question is what do they have to contribute and whether they are ready to indeed bring such substantive contributions.

Discussion was opened by Mr. Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, and he argued that the Black Sea regoin now is the new frontier of democracy and integration. Most of the conflicts are in this region, in the wider Black Sea region. Therefore solution of these problems should be a natural follow-up and follow-on to the processes of EU and NATO enlargement and should be seen as a part of the grand design of European integration.

This integration requires the active involvement of NATO and active involvement of EU and coordination of their actions. Most importantly, according to him, it requires that these actions be based on western interests, not on Russia's concerns or Russia's interest, as he believed Russia so far has been a part of the problem rather than part of the solution to all conflicts that we are dealing with.

He believed that any solution must be based on the principal of democratic peace. Solutions cannot be reached with authoritarian regimes. Democratization of these regimes is a necessary condition of finding lasting solutions to conflicts that we are dealing with.

Another problem, another factor is the demilitarization of these conflicts and the international presence there including future peacekeeping pressure.

Mr. Georgi Baramidze, Minister for- State Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration but also Deputy Prime Minister of Georgia, said that not everything is that bleak and bad in the regions.

He stressed positive developments in Moldova and positive Ukrainian involvement in Moldova. He welcomed the recent talks between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Warsaw. But he tended to agree with Mr. Socor that Russia has not been playing a constructive role in any of the conflicts in hand, especially in the Caucasus and he argued that Russia is questioning the territorial integrity of states including Georgia while territorial integrity is the indispensable principle--at least in view of Georgia for solving all these conflicts.

He believed that Georgia is committed to peaceful solution of all conflicts on its territory based on the President Saakashvili's plan from Strasbourg. He also argued for much more active engagement of NATO and partnership and the EAPC in these issues- in the conflicts.

Mr. Dan Fried, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs was the- of the United of States of course, was the last predestined(?) he was to speak, but he was also one of those that we asked to intervene.

And he argued that there are two new emerging strategic frameworks in which we have to address the issues at hand. One is the emergence of the Black Sea as the new frontier of democracy and reform and the potentially new frontier- new framework for European integration.

Second is the political acceleration of domestic developments in the Black Sea region but also in Central Asia.

Now he said that this political acceleration may actually lead to the unfreezing of some of the conflicts, but this unfreezing doesn't necessarily have to be bad, because these unfreezings may lead actually to solution of these conflicts by reform and by democratization as we have seen already in a number of countries in this region.

Therefore, Mr. Fried believed that the time has come to act, to move ahead, and international organisations should definitely be involved and move ahead. And he stressed that the US government wants to be a part of this movement and is prepared to take its role in taking the agenda forward.

Ladies and gentlemen, a fascinating discussion followed which I don't have time now probably to recapitulate to you. But I think that the free concepts which most participants would agree, first is democracy/reform as the means towards long term solution. Second, is institutional cooperation and coordination as the method and third, integration as the carrot, as the headline goal towards which all parties involved should be working on.

The fourth buzzword during this discussion was Russia and that was an important line(?) of discussion and what the participants did not agree was on the past, present and future role of Russia in solving the conflicts that we have been dealing with.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)

MINUTO-RIZZO: So let me now give the floor to Dan Speckhard who is the head of the Policy Planning Unit at NATO to report on the second panel on "NATO and its other Partnerships" and I will judge directly if he has the right conclusions. (Laughter)

DANIEL SPECKHARD (Head of the Policy Planning Unit, NATO): Thank you, yes, this is a special challenge because the deputy secretary general was chair of this panel, so we'll try to do a good job.

As he said it's "NATO and its other Partnerships". The deputy secretary general opened this panel by reminding us that security today knows no boundaries and that the need for partnership because of that goes well beyond the Euro-Atlantic area.

He highlighted the growing interest in the Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative in terms of enhancing cooperation and making substance to these relationships. And he reminded us that this whole other partnerships issue is not limited to those two initiatives but that countries like Australia, New Zealand and Japan also share with us a common interest and concerns and are natural partners in addressing some of today's security challenges.

He was followed by State Secretary Vášáryová of Slovakia. She gave us the perspective of a new member and basically highlighted that it's payback time for the new members, that it's time for them to be contributing to some of our partners' efforts and programs with NATO and she highlighted a number of areas where they could particularly bring added value in this and that is in the area of developing strategic security formulas for countries in terms of developing defence reform programs, regional cooperation and building cooperative programs and identifying cooperative activities with NATO.

Looking to the future she highlighted interoperability, political dialogue, and strengthening partner involvement in decision making process on operations to be three key areas that we should be looking at for development with our partners.

Ambassador Benattallah of Algeria brought a welcomed perspective from the Mediterranean region. He raised three important factors for strengthening the Mediterranean Dialogue.

First was ownership, and he said initially there was some concern about whether this was an initiative that was being generated without the benefit of their input but felt now that this is truly a cooperative effort and partnership and felt comfortable with the direction that it was headed.

Second, he talked about the implementation aspects and here he put on priorities political dialogue, that we need regular meetings with the MD Ambassadors to talk about political issues; and he highlighted that perhaps it's time to bring in partners, other partners in the Partnership for Peace process, into the discussions with the Mediterranean Dialogue countries, or alternatively to have Med dialogue countries in as observers in EAPC or PfP meetings because he highlighted that many of the issues that we're dealing with on defence reform, defence development and cooperation are often the same.

And then he also talked about in the area of implementation the importance of practical cooperation with NATO and highlighted a number of areas including defence cooperation, interoperability, defence reform and possibly border security as fertile ground for further cooperation.

And last he talked about the political environment being important as this initiative develops. And in here in particular it's obvious that the developments in the Middle East peace process as well as Iraq will be important to the development of this initiative in some sense, in terms of building confidence in the region and the relationship with NATO and NATO countries.

And he was followed by Dr. Larrabee of the Rand Corporation, who highlighted that there's been a changed focus in NATO since 9/11 and that the- and also because of the consolidation of democracy in central and eastern Europe, that because of this there is a new focus and a new energy on the democracy and development of relations in the Broader Middle East.

He highlighted again something that has been said before but the importance that this ownership is shared and that we avoid a made in Brussels approach to this, and he listed a number of open issues that we need to be considering.

The first, Iran, should at some point in the future it be in the ICI, should we isolate or engage Iran? The Palestinian Authority is a second issue, what role does NATO have in relations with the Palestinian Authority and how should we approach this issue? Third, terrorism, how to deal with that on the agenda of the Med Dialogue and ICI initiatives.

Fourth, Partnership for Peace for the Middle East. Should we have the same- essentially draw forward the kind of energy and activity we had for the partnership in central and Eastern Europe towards the Greater Middle East?

And relationship complementary, excuse me, with the European Union was important as we go forward in this, and last the relationship with the Middle East peace process, and he highlighted again that our success is linked here, and also left open the question of a possible future role for NATO at some point in the future.

His last point was that we need to keep in mind that as the energy is absorbed on this Broader Middle East effort that we need to not lose sight that there is still a third way of democratization happening in the Euro-Atlantic area and the challenge will be to keep the focus both on the work still to be done in the Euro-Atlantic area while looking beyond.

The discussants were Mr. Valasek from the Centre for Defence Information in Brussels, and he had two main points that he raised. One was that as we move further away from central Europe in terms of our development of our relationships that we're losing one of the most attractive tools we've had in promoting democratization and defence reform, and that is the prospect of future membership. And we're going to have to deal with this dilemma of how the Alliance takes on these big tasks of building these cooperative relationships without the incentives that we sometimes had in the past.

And second he talked about the NATO-EU relationship hanging over the discussion of all of this. The question being is NATO still unique, or will it remain unique? And NATO needs to continue to reinvent itself to keep on the cutting edge and suggested that the contribution of non-EU countries is one of the key aspects that makes NATO special in this context.

And last, Mr. Carroll, of the Club of Madrid, brought a useful perspective from a non-security organisation highlighting the importance of democracy and he mentioned that not only do modernization and democracy go together as the Secretary General suggested this morning in his speech, but integration and democracy go hand in hand, and he urged NATO to first put democracy first, without democracy there is no security.

Second, that defence reform should be on the top of our agenda and third, that NATO needs to work with international partners well beyond the security realm as the relationship between the political and security is ever so important in the broader sense.

In the discussion I would just highlight a couple of key themes that came out.

First, that there will be at some point in time a need to consider new members to our partnerships in the Broader Middle East. Comments suggested that countries like Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and even Iran at some point may come up in the discussion as potential future candidates.

Second, we need to find ways to include partners in new formats, that there was some concern that while we have all these initiatives, there's not enough horizontal information being exchanged, and so the question was whether we should put together a broader forum that would include the Partnership for Peace, the Med Dialogue, the ICI and the contact countries all together, or whether perhaps there's some subsets of those where groups are observers in other groups, or whether another alternative would be variable geometry based either on the issues or on the regions that you could bring groups of countries together to try to get this exchange of information and greater synergy going.

Third, the Black Sea came up in our discussions as well, in the context that as we look at some of the challenges, the security challenges that we're facing jointly with our countries of the Mediterranean Dialogue and ICI that in fact many of these are the same challenges that the Caucusus and the Balkans are facing and we should look at ways to build that synergy.

Fourth, we need to make sure we have the resources to meet the expectations as we carry these initiatives forward and a colourful comment was that we need to make sure that we're not a big hat with no cattle as we move forward on this.

And last, the same- many of the same comments that came up in the first panel came up in the second panel as well. These issues of democracy, reform and legitimacy--I would highlight here on legitimacy not just of the countries we're dealing with, but of our institutions ourselves in dealing with these countries and our relationships--and that in doing that we're going to need new tools potentially to promote democracy as well as to assert the values that we share. And the question that was left hanging here is: Does NATO need to consider the possibility that we would have to have an expulsion policy at some point in the future if a particular country went too far in the wrong direction?

So, I'll stop there, it was a very rich discussion but couldn't do it all justice.

MINUTO-RIZZO: Thank you. The conclusion was that we should have hat and cattle. (Laughter)

SKONIECZKA: Ladies and gentlemen, this event has been so good that something must have gone wrong and it did indeed, and with my deepest apologies to Mr. Valionis, I did not comment on his intervention during the panel, so my deepest apologies and indeed I guess with your permission, and I'm sure that you don't have a choice, you will allow me to quickly comment on his intervention.

Mr. Valionis stressed that democracy and democratic states, only those which can generate secure environment for European security. He reminded us that the Western Balkans is an unfinished business yet, but the success that we have already noted there, the key to this success is the progress of integration and the prospect of integration and these same prospects can work elsewhere, can work for Moldova, can work for the Soviet(?) Caucasus.

Especially in Moldova, Ukraine's role would be crucial, Russia's role will be crucial. In the Caucasus, the role of democratic reform will be absolutely essential and NATO has a role to play and NATO has perhaps a bigger role to play than so far.

And so do regional organisations including GUUAM which bring their contribution to the common efforts to solve the problems.

Since I have the floor I think I also have to reflect on this summary by the Minister of Norway, Jan Petersen, who said that, integration: yes; democracy: yes; international involvement: yes--but eventually we will not be able to do anything and these things will not help if there will be no political will of parties involved to solve their problems.

Again with apologies to you minister and to Minister Petersen, thank you very much.

MINUTO-RIZZO: Better late than never. So I will now give the floor to Jonathan Parish who is a senior planning officer in the Political Affairs Division at NATO. He's going to report on the third panel on central Asia, future cooperation in the EAPC. Please, you have the floor.

JONATHAN PARISH (Senior Planning Officer, NATO): Sir, thank you. I feel guilty standing up here trying to do justice do the breadth and depth of the panellists and the discussion, but I will do my best.

Minister Gül started us off by saying that it was 9/11 that brought Central Asia back to prominence, that we need to bear in mind it is not a monolithic area but we have to recognize the individuality of each state. Promotion of political and social reform in the area is essential.

Turkey with its traditional links to the region has a lot to offer. Tolerance and advancement of democracy are going to be the keys that will deliver stability in the area. We have to make efficient use of the current NATO mechanisms because they do offer excellent potential.

From his recent experience and visit he said that the Kyrgyz Republic is passing through a key stage in its development. Its leaders are advancing greater democracy and international support for these efforts is now required. He then contrasted this with the current situation in Uzbekistan.

His Excellency Minister Volkov from Kazakhstan said the international community acknowledges the vulnerability of this region to modern threats, particularly trafficking and terrorism. He said recent events show the importance of promoting democracy as a method for achieving stability. Kazakhstan's political model, he said, is close to the Western European model and Kazakhstan is ready to move to a new level of cooperation with interested nations and organisations including NATO.

He highlighted his country's drive for interoperability with NATO demonstrated by their engineering unit which is contributing to Polish-led efforts in Iraq. He hoped that his IPAP will be adopted by the end of the year. He particularly stressed the importance to address the problem of drug trafficking and he mentioned that future cooperation in the development of border security will be vital. Finally, he highlighted his country's offer to host the next EAPC Security Forum.

His Excellency Ambassador Emerson stated that as he is not from any aligned organisation he had the freedom of being totally frank, and he would concentrate on Uzbekistan. He stated that the Karimov regime has a long history of human rights abuses and he took issue with his description of the cause of the recent events. He stated that whereas Karimov says that the source of the problem was radical Islamists with international terrorist links, Ambassador Emerson stated there was no credibility to this. To the second argument, that attempts to develop democracy in the country will only favour radical Islamists and could have serious and tragic consequences, Ambassador Emerson said that the exclusion of non-violent and moderate Islamists is actually counter productive, both for the people and security as a whole.

So he proposed a way ahead that says an international inquiry obviously is essential but that NATO, the US and the EU need to do more than talk about consequences. He suggested that NATO should suspend Uzbekistan's membership of Partnership for Peace. He said the EU should suspend the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and that the US should close its military base in the country.

Miss Sattorova from Tajikistan highlighted that her country is surrounded by four very interesting countries, but that radical Islam is not the only concern. Stability in the region has deteriorated. Drug trafficking and border security are major issues, but so also is the threat of terrorism, the problems of labour migration and human trafficking and she made an interesting analogy, saying a fire in your neighbour's house also affects you.

She stressed the importance of targeting development on education, information and culture, highlighting the importance of developing your future leaders, raising public awareness, enhancing integration of the ethnic groups and the national minorities, and also empowering women, especially in decision making.

Our first discussant was Mr. Simmons who is the Secretary General's Special Representative for Caucasus and Central Asia. He said yes, the countries are diverse but they do share some features: They are all on the front line of many of the modern challenges, and he concentrated on what he believes NATO and other partners can offer to the region.

He highlighted particularly defence reform, border security, acknowledging that although NATO doesn't have all the tools, it can help in this area. He highlighted the virtual silk highway with the access to information and enhancing communication, and he also stressed that civil emergency planning is a useful area for cooperation.

Mr. Unaibaeva from Kazakhstan said that the active participation of academia and civil society is also key in enhancing security and stability and that education and forum, such as today's, are necessary to enhance informed dialogue and these will be a key component in building confidence security measures.

Mr. Sikorski highlighted a personal impression of Afghanistan which he said is also a major influence in the region. He was impressed by progress that that country has made, highlighting business development, the education of women and the development of infrastructure.

He believed there are two models for the development of the country: The secular Kabul-based model which thrives on massive external investment and the moderate Islamist model in Herat under Ismail Khan which is more patriarchal in nature, but responds to the local culture. He also hoped to see an Afghan delegation at the next EAPC Security Forum.

In discussion, the key points that came up were the challenges to partnership in the region. The deficit of democracy in some states, the differing priorities and expectations. It was stressed that NATO has many instruments available but needs to enhance cooperation in the region with the other international organisations.

In a discussion that was to a large extent focused on Uzbekistan, Mr. Simmons replied that he thought that dialogue should be maintained with that state, but that no benefits should be offered. One participant stated that Uzbekistan has signed up within the EAPC to democracy and human rights and should therefore be held to account, another speaker said that it is a highly complex region, it is important to control the current situation, that the role of China, Pakistan and Russia needs to be taken into account and that tackling the drugs problem with its source in Afghanistan is key to tackling many of the region's wider problems.

Another speaker said that while he agreed that dialogue with Uzbekistan is required, action now is also required before the issue drops out of the headlines.

There were some differences of view of how the events in Uzbekistan unfolded and where responsibility for the outbreak of violence lies. The Kyrgyz Republic being at a key stage of development, the international community support is required and it was here that Ambassador Emerson suggested that the European Union and Turkey should cooperate together.

It was pointed out that although the discussion had concentred on the well known problems there are a number of positive developments that further outside assistance should support, and I think that it was therefore (inaudible) that in conclusion what was stressed was that cooperation between NATO and the region is good, there is a need to follow up on the positive developments, especially in the Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan, and that NATO with its Trust Fund and training facilities in particular could be highly beneficial.

MINUTO-RIZZO: Thank you very much, Jonathan.

So, finally let me pass the floor to Jamie Shea--you should come here-who is the Deputy Assistant, Secretary General for External Elections in NATO's Public Diplomacy Division. He was going to report on the fourth panel on "Acting in concert in the Balkans and elsewhere".

JAMIE SHEA (Deputy Assistant Secretary General for External Relations, Public Diplomacy Division): Deputy Secretary General thank you. I've got two pieces of good news. Number one is that I'm the last rapporteur and the second is I'm going to try very hard to break the speed record set by my three distinguished predecessors.

We on panel four had a very demanding task; we had to talk about two things, not just one.

As the deputy secretary general said we had to talk about improving institutional cooperation and secondly to review the Balkans and apply the lessons learned to elsewhere. I'm very pleased to say that we were incredibly self disciplined under the very good chairmanship of Dimitrij Rupel and I think we covered both of those subjects very comprehensively.

On the international organisation, the general mood was clearly that there's room for improvement, we can seek greater synergy.

Nicholas Whyte, I think, pointed out that one of the weak areas was early warning of crises and advanced information and that greater links with NGOs would be helpful there because NGOs often being on the spot are the best means of early warning.

And everybody agreed, following Dmitrij Rupel's opening remarks, that we need to share information, we need to share expertise, keep each other informed and multiply contacts, both at the strategic level and at the working level.

Second area of general agreement, obviously avoiding duplication of resources. We will all be losers from competitive relationships. And looking at the NATO-EU relationship Under Secretary of State Burns did point out that Berlin Plus has proven to work very well in regulating the NATO-EU relationship and should be adhered to.

The focus was on very much bringing the resources together to handle common tasks. Kosovo, the UNMIK structure, the integration of the organisations there was sighted as a model in moving the standards process forward in Kosovo where each organisation was playing a part, destruction of small arms and ammunition, security sector reform, border management, these have been mentioned already, were referred to as examples of managing common tasks.

The Chairman, Dimitrij Rupel, came up with some interesting rules of the road for how we could manage better the synergy among the institutions. First of all he said there should be a lead organisation that in any situation was best geared to take the overall lead with the other organisations fitting in behind.

It didn't always have to be the same organisation. He gave examples of different crisis where different organisations have been best at taking the lead.

The second thing he said is don't get hung up on theology and later on the Estonian ambassador came in very usefully on this with reference to Darfur and said hey, the people in Darfur don't care which institution is bringing them help or stopping genocide or ethnic cleansing. In fact he used a slightly stronger term than don't care, but I won't repeat that here.

But the fact is that it's about the crisis not the institution, was I think a lesson in reality, which was well heeded by everybody in working group four.

The next rule of the road was that organisations should not be afraid to defer to others. It's not a strategic defeat if sometimes nations take the lead in dealing with crises and not international organisations or if each organisation is not necessarily involved in every crisis. There's certainly enough work to go around to keep everybody occupied, and that we should reduce bureaucracy and the number of meetings where they didn't produce results as well as offer expertise to other areas of the world.

Then in the next stage of the working group's work, we looked a little bit about the current state of the organisations. Pierre Lelouche came across in a sober minded mood, talking about a mid-life crisis of the institutions or a floue artistique and in NATO in particular he worried about the Alliance not having a distinct role in combating terrorism, its inability to have a common line in dealing after the September 11 with Iraq.

He worried too about the United States still being attracted mainly by coalitions of the willing and the Rumsfeldian comment repeated at the (inaudible) in Munich last February, that it's the mission which determines the coalition and what did this mean for the future of NATO.

Nick Burns responded, making it very clear that from a US perspective NATO will be the central transatlantic institution but the US would prefer always to act multilaterally in contrast to acting with just a few of the allies, that NATO would continue to be the best way for Europeans to work with the United States. And he reminded everybody that the US-European partnership after World War II had brought an unprecedented period of success and peace for both sides of the Atlantic, and he doubted strongly that the great majority of Europeans wanted the EU or Europe to be a counterweight to the United States.

Pierre Lelouche then went on to offer some other thoughts which I believe did reach a general consensus. One remark he made which interested me was that we are talking up soft power far too much at the moment. It's of course a n essential ingredient of crisis management but as he pointed out, the danger is that we're never going to have adequate defence budgets if we always put the emphasis on soft power and that NATO of course as it seeks to generate military capabilities would be one of the largest losers.

He also pointed out that the Europeans themselves, particularly with the referenda in France and the Netherlands over the next few days have to decide crucially if they are ready to be a willing partner to the United States, both in building up the European security and defence policy and obviously providing the defence budgets necessary for Europe to have the capabilities that a real partner has to have.

He also suggested that international law was an important part of crisis management and raised the interesting question of whether in Kyrgyzstan violence would have been used- would be used if the Kyrgyz leaders or any other leaders committing disproportionate acts of violence knew that they would be deferred to the International Criminal Court.

This started an interesting discussion, and you won't be surprised to hear this, on the US - European EU relationship and the need for enhanced political consultations in NATO. James Ellis representing the European Parliament I think very usefully pointed out, quoting Henry Kissinger, that Europe has a telephone number but the US still needs to know what Europe is going to say to it across that telephone line.

He pointed out that substance was really the key here, the political will others made this point to work together on issues, and whether that political will was there, whether it would be the US-EU dialogue or the dialogue in NATO would rapidly be identified.

And he also pointed out and I think very sensibly that if the EU-US relationship was working well that would benefit NATO and vice versa. It was not a zero sum game. A good relationship would benefit both organisations.

And finally he pointed out that as the parliamentary dimension, particularly here in Europe with the increased role of the European Parliament becomes ever more important, involving parliamentarians in this exercise as well as diplomats would be a precondition of success.

Then we went on to the Balkans. The Foreign Minister of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic reminded everybody that we were at a favourable moment based on past successes, but at the same time Nick Burns also pointed out that the Balkans, despite those successes, are unfinished business. That we began the twentieth century in the Balkans and we finished the twentieth century in the Balkans and that therefore we had to work on the key issues: Bosnia, Serbia-Montenegro and Kosovo.

Bosnia, there was general agreement on the agenda that needs to be achieved to build a truly multi-ethnic state with common institutions, particularly in the police and the military. To persuade the Bosnian Serbs to commit more to that vision of a unitary state alongside the Bosnian Croats and the Bosnian Muslims, to continue, of course, with the ICTY requirements to hand over Mladic and Karadzic.

Serbia-Montenegro, to bring this country into the transatlantic family, to- obviously to manage the functioning federation between Serbia and Montenegro, or what would follow from it, and security sector reform.

In both those cases, there was a discussion on conditionality which I found interesting. I think the consensus was, ladies and gentlemen, the conditionality has worked, and therefore we should stick to it. But at the same time, there were some participants that believed that even conditionality was compatible with smart sanctions or smart visas, or helping the moderates by giving a positive incentive--that’s certainly an area for further discussion.

On Kosovo, general agreement too, as Nick Burns pointed out, that 2005 can be the year of decision which can set Kosovo on a clear path towards a resolution of the status question, the assessment of the standards is important, pressure has to made- maintained for those standards to be advanced even while the review process is taking place as we head towards final status talks. Support(?), this won't surprise you, for the principles of the Contract Group and a sense that yes, on the one hand, there can be no pre-ordained solution for Kosovo in advance of the standards review, but that at the end of the day a decision which goes against the choices of the people there would be difficult to implement.

On the Balkans in general, particularly as we were so fortunate in having the foreign minister of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the foreign minister of Croatia, and the foreign minister of Albania in the panel room, we looked, of course, also at the membership aspirations of those three countries. A clear sense that the Adriatic Charter had been helpful in that process, and even a discussion as to whether Serbia and Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina should be associated with that process, but also a clear sense that those three countries, while cooperating, had to go at their own individual speeds and be considered on their individual merits.

In general too, a sense for a presentation by Kastriot Islami, the foreign minister of Albania, that regional cooperation had proved its value in terms of refugees, war crimes, economic development, property questions, and should be continued and reinforced. But as Nicholas Whyte pointed out, when he intervened again, that the solution could not be the eternal presence of international governors and international representatives, that the now whole process should be to create accountable local institutions.

Finally, future work. Here, too, major thoughts. One, though, is that NATO needs to do much more thinking on the link between security and development, particularly economic development and reform.

It was pointed out, for example, in Croatia, by one of the questions from the floor, that the lack of economic, comparative, relative lack of economic growth had reduced support for NATO and the European Union, although the foreign minister of Croatia intervened to explain why and relativize that, but that these were linked, and that therefore this had to be much more factored in.

And secondly, the whole experience that NATO has gained in the Balkans in the 1990s, of working with civil society and NGOs, economic agencies and other international organisations, should somehow become a model mutatis mutandis that then could be applied via the partnership to the search for other stabilization solutions in the Black Sea, the Caucasus and elsewhere.

And believe it or not, we managed to do all of that in two hours.

Thank you.

MINUTO-RIZZO: Very good, Jimmy, thank you very much.

(Applause)

I don't know if the applauses are to you or to the fact that you are the last speaker. I don't know, but anyway, thank you for that lively résumé. But you didn't keep your promise to be the shortest of all.

SHEA: Yes, I know.

MINUTO-RIZZO: You know, nobody’s perfect.

So here we are. You've had, I think, a good, a good report from the four panels of this morning which were, I think, very good and really nobody lost time in them. So I would like now to open the floor for your comments on this, on these panels. And of course I would encourage chairmen and speakers from panels to respond if they feel they have to. There is not an obligation to do so, but if you, somebody wants to make comments, this is the moment of doing that.

Yes? Yes, Mr. Emerson, please.

SHEA: Michael, there's a microphone...

MINUTO-RIZZO: Unless you come here. I mean, perhaps it’s easier for you.

SHEA: Just in the middle of the room there's a microphone. There’s a podium with a microphone.

MICHAEL EMERSON (Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, and former EU Ambassador to Russia): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I wanted to comment on, on two things. One, the group I was in, which was Central Asia, and the other group I would also like to have been in, which was the conflicts one.

On Central Asia, I’d just like to refine a bit what the rapporteur said that I said, because I think it’s not just a personal matter. It’s a matter of policy specification. On the question as to in what circumstances NATO might suspend PfP with Uzbekistan, and the European Union might suspend the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, I suggested that conditionally in the hypothesis that president Karimov refused to accept the Secretary General’s proposal that there be a UN legitimized international inquiry. So this should be brought forward as an incentive or a potential penalty for Uzbekistan if it did or did not cooperate. And similarly, with respect to the US base, I didn't actually recommend that it be closed full stop, but rather that this base should not be taken as a hostage politically and that if Karimov refused to have an inquiry, and if the general political atmosphere aggravated and if Karimov said to the Americans, 'Either shut up and leave me with my good political regime, or clear out' that bluff should be called.

Now, on the, on the frozen conflicts, I would have liked the synthesis of these five conflicts--I would add Cyprus to the four of the former Soviet Union--Mr. Tarasyuk said (inaudible) or the Soviet Union, of course there's the Cyprus one as well. I would have liked the synthesis to have distinguished between three cases which I think conceivably soluble within a fairly short period, and two which I think have no prospects at the moment.

And the two that seem to me to have no prospects is in the case of Cyprus, I think it is clear that the Greek Republic of Cyprus is not interested in a federative solution along the lines of the Annan plan that has international legitimacy. That being the case, life has to go on, and the issue therefore should become now how to make life relatively normally liveable in economic terms in northern Cyprus and I think the international debate on this subject has not yet come to terms with, with this new reality.

With Abcasia(?), because it is linked to the Sotchy(?) region as it were, geographically, and because Georgia went in there and lost the war and because, there’s no chance, I think, of negotiating a federative solution, and I think the Georgian government is unrealistic to aim at that.

On the other hand, for Southern Ossetia and for Transnistria, in those two cases, I would submit that the regimes in question have no viable statehood prospects beyond being smugglers, little smugglers' entities. So in these cases, I would not agree with Sergei Karganov. He was suggesting that they should be entitled to statehood. I think in those two cases, the onus indeed is on Russia to withdraw their protection from these little smuggling dictatorships, because if the- if the tunnel through the Caucasus is blocked, then the Southern Ossetian regime collapses, and similarly Transnistria has no viability if the smuggling were to be stopped now by Ukraine and Moldova.

Thank you.

MINUTO-RIZZO: Thank you Mr. Emerson for your contribution.

Does anybody else wish to intervene on the four panels conclusions? Doesn't seem to be the case. So I think that we can close that kind of discussion. And then I would just open the floor asking you if you have general points to make, which are not necessarily linked to the four panels discussions and conclusions, but of a general nature concerning our conference or other issues. So I wonder if anybody wishes to contribute in that? Yes? I cannot recognize you because the front, the light is in front of me, but...

SHEA: It’s Fraser Cameron of the...

MINUTO-RIZZO: Fraser Cameron, oh, right, you are.

FRASER CAMERON: Well, it may not have been the same for all the panels, but I think we could perhaps have organized it slightly better in focusing one or two key questions to be debated within the panels. I felt that there was perhaps slightly too much emphasis given to prepared statements which could perhaps have been distributed in advance to delegates, and we should have allowed a little bit more time for discussion amongst very qualified people in the room. So if I was offering one piece of advice for the future, it would be that.

MINUTO-RIZZO: Thank you. This is a problem anywhere, you know, with this kind of meetings. Very difficult to convince everybody to leave the prepared statements. But of course we still fight...

SKONIECZKA: If I may make a very short comment on the panel of, of unsolved conflicts, we did not have to deal in this panel with pre-prepared statements, and I think that we’ve, that at least this panel has challenged and changed this political culture of this, of this discussion in the EAPC where we exchange pre-prepared formal statements on controversial issues. At least this panel was indeed an exchange of people speaking their minds and their hearts. Thank you.

SPECKHARD: That would go for panel two as well.

MINUTO-RIZZO: Yes, that was the case of panel two as well, so probably for some other panel, I don't know which one, but anyway.

UNIDENTIFIED: (inaudible).

MINUTO-RIZZO: Yes, I, time to look. Do, does anybody else wish to make a contribution at this point? If you do, please raise your hand so as to be recognized. It doesn't seem to be the case. Of course, I give the floor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden.

LAILA FREIWALDS (Foreign Minister of Sweden): I have to turn it around. I don't want to have most of you in my back. But then I have you, so I don't know what to do- I will circle around a bit.

Dear friends and colleagues, now when we are preparing for leaving Åre, I just want to make some personal remarks.

I can tell you that when we accepted to arrange this forum we had, I admit, high expectations--high expectations that we should have interesting discussions using the experience, the knowledge and the political influence that is represented here. And I must say that I think that we have succeeded to achieve what we wanted.

And I really want to stress the fact that I had the impression that, from most meetings there not pre-prepared speeches, but very spontaneous personal (inaudible). And I think that was what we wanted to achieve and we achieved that, and I hope that this means that we can continue to have these kind of gatherings. I think we need it, because we have many problems to face and to cooperate together with- to find solutions. And we have taken one step here today I think.

I want to take everyone who has participated in arranging this forum, of course, the Secretary General and his staff. Also all the organizers here in Åre, the whole community of Åre has been very helpful. And most of all, of course, all of you who have been contributing to our discussions, and truly, I want to say, showed what this partnership is about.

Thank you very, very much and have a good travel home- and safe.

(Applause)

MINUTO-RIZZO: So thank you very much Madam Minister for your- for your final intervention and thank you.

I would like to thank you all for your interventions. I think that this inaugural security forum, this experiment has been an excellent opportunity for us to stand back from our everyday work and take a serious look at the major security issues for the Euro-Atlantic region.

And I also thank, and I'm very convinced about that, that it has been particularly beneficial to have had the participations of members of civil society. They have enriched to a large extent our debate.

I will not try to draw out detailed conclusions from today’s discussions because I think they have covered a range of very diverse issues, and it would be unfair to summarize that in a few minutes.

But I think that these discussions have shown once again that over just such a wide range of diverse issues, allies and partners have shared security interests and will always be more secure if we continue to tackle the major security challenges together.

Most importantly, we need to make sure that we have a common understanding of the challenges we face, and this is why political dialogue and open exchanges are of such importance. And today’s discussions have made a major contribution, I hope, to our collective thinking.

So I would like to once again thank our Swedish host for their hospitality in this nice location, and I wish you all a very safe journey back home.

Thank you very much.

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