NATO HQ, Brussels 17 Mar. 2006

Video Background Briefing by the NATO Spokesman Multimedia Audio file .MP3/5507Kb Video interview Biography James Appathurai JAMES APPATHURAI (Spokesman, NATO): Hello, and thank you for tuning in to the latest in our series of monthly briefings on what is happening here at NATO headquarters, but also, of course, in our operations and missions and in our political engagements. By the time you see this, the Secretary General will likely have completed a visit that is taking place in mid-March to Washington where he will or will have met with President Bush, Secretary Rice, Secretary Rumsfeld as well National Security Hadley and other senior officials as well as giving a speech at a major university in Washington . The discussions in Washington are likely to centre around a few major topics. And I'll touch on a few of these, three of these: Afghanistan , Darfur and the upcoming Riga summit. Let me start with Afghanistan . The President and the Secretary General will have focussed very much on what is taking place on the ground now. And that is the steps that are being taken to put the expansion of the NATO led mission in Afghanistan in place. The decisions on new operational plan for the Alliance , for the new rules of engagement, for ISAF, all these decisions have been taken now. The next step is implementation. And what has happened is that the United Kingdom has announced a major contribution for the expanded mission to the south, initially over 5,000 troops. That number will drop down. The Canadian government has announced quite a few troops as well: 2,200 approximately; the Netherlands also well over 1,000 troops and other countries as well, for example Denmark , I presume; Australia and others. So this will be a major expansion of around 6,000 troops of the ISAF, the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan towards the south. I can tell you, many countries have already begun deploying those troops in anticipation of what we call "transfer of authority" to NATO. So these troops have begun deploying south, the advanced elements of them, to prepare for that time when NATO can assume command of operations in the South as well. We expect that time to be during the summer. June, July, August seems to be the time around which all the necessary elements not just the force deployments, but also the necessary logistics, the necessary infrastructure and the necessary commanding control arrangements. All of these have to be in place before General Jim Jones, our Supreme Allied Commander for Operations can come to the North Atlantic Council and tell the council that political leadership of this organization that... that what he has... what he needs in place and he can assume authority for the South. As I say we expect that to be during the day. In the meanwhile, changes are also taking place in other parts of Afghanistan . As for example, Germany takes leadership of the regional area command in the North. And other troops are being moved from one location to another. For example, important partners, like the Swedes are taking over provincial reconstruction team in Mazar-i-Sharif. So lot of changes taking place but all of it in the right direction, implementation of a major expansion of ISAF towards the South with an eye to what we call stage 4 which will of course follow stage 3 whereby NATO will follow this expansion with an expansion into the east of the country and be operating throughout the country, all the time distinct from... but in synergy with Operation Enduring Freedom, the US led coalition. Let me turn out to Darfur . I think all of you watching this share the same concern that everyone in this building feels and farther fields as well and that is the situation of Darfur at the time that I'm recording this is certainly not getting better, it seems to be getting worse. It seems to be spreading across the border into Chad as well. For reasons of international stability and for reasons of simple humanitarian concern it is no surprise that we're all deeply engaged with trying to work to find a solution to what is going on there. President Bush has taken a real leadership role here and has been very public in pushing in various organizations, various international fora and simply from the "bully pulpit" for a solution to this problem. Now, as you may or may not know, the African Union Peace and Security Council has taken the decision that in six months in principle it would be willing the AU mission, the African Union mission to the United Nations in of course of according to their agreement, a peace deal in the Abuja peace process between the capital and the rebels, between Khartoum and the rebels. Now, there are many caveats built into this kind of an agreement. But certainly the Secretary General believes and the NATO Allies believe that handing over this successful AU mission to the United Nations in six months would be the right thing to do. Now, there have been calls in various fora, the US Congress, in the press for NATO to play a more active role particularly if and when the UN were to take over from the African Union. All I can at this stage because that is the state which we are in now is that NATO is continuing to do what it has done until now, with the request of the African Union and that is to fly in and out, to rotate African Union battalions. I think the number is now at 11 battalions of African Union troops for which NATO has arranged the rotation. NATO is also providing training for the African Union. In terms of its long-term capacity building, the ability to plan large operations, to do the logistics for large operations and to do the commanding control, NATO is providing that assistance. Now, I know, in this I lean forward now to the Riga Summit that certain nations believe and there will be discussion within NATO about the idea of NATO providing some kind of longer term or structural training assistance for Africa, I presume, centred around the African Union. This may or may not come up or may not have come up between the Secretary General and President Bush. But I can guarantee that in the run-up to the Riga Summit, this issue will be on the agenda. Let me now turn fully to the Riga Summit and then I'll mention one more issue before we bring this to an end. The Secretary General and the President, of course, have talked about Riga , because this will be a major milestone for the Alliance , NATO's transformation... NATO's modernization for 21st century missions I think has now quite a few years of success. We can see the results. We are doing Afghanistan and doing it well. We have deployable forces that are sustainable in the field that are effective, that are trained in the kinds of missions that they need to do today. As I mentioned in my last briefing, the restraint and the ability to do riot... crowd riot control demonstrated by the PRT in Maimana in the North is proof that, indeed, our troops are trained and equipped for modern operations. But first, transformation is a process, not an event. And second, there's unfinished business. One of those elements of unfinished business has to be long-range strategic air transport. NATO needs more access to long-range strategic air transport. And there will be discussions from now until Riga to see how the Alliance can organize itself to have more readily available, consistently available long-range strategic air transport. That will be important for sustaining another major deliverable for Riga . And that will be the full operational capability of the NATO Response Force. The NATO Response Force is NATO's rapid reaction capability that is in the process of development. It has already been used, or at least elements of it, have already been used, for example, to provide humanitarian assistance after the Pakistani earthquake. But there will be a major exercise in June in Cape Verde to see at what stage of development the NRF is. We hope and intend to work towards having the NRF have its full operational capability in time for Riga . That's another element that the Secretary General and the President will discuss as the Secretary General discussed it with all Allied leaders. There may be other issues to be discussed in the context of Riga . I've mentioned already the possibility of a training initiative for Africa . Another idea may be a training initiative for the Middle East with part... interested partners in the Middle East to help develop their capability also to do modern peacekeeping operations. Finally, another issue which may be on the agenda between now and November when the Riga Summit will take place may be reaching out in a more structural way, to have a more structured relationship with countries with whom we have the potential to work or do already work but who are beyond the Euro-Atlantic area, for example Australian and New Zealand, Japan, potentially South Korea. That too should come up in the coming months. Let me turn now, finally, to one other event on the calendar for the coming month... and that is at the beginning of April, there will be a high level event taking place in Rabat where the entire NATO Council, led by the Secretary General, the ambassadors of the seven Mediterranean Dialogue countries that are based here in Brussels, in other words from the six North African countries and Israel who... They will be joined in Rabat by political directors that are senior foreign affairs officials from the seven Mediterranean Dialogue countries to have, again, a high-level political event in a partner country, in a Mediterranean Dialogue country to discuss how we have done in the last 10 years in the Mediterranean Dialogue and building trust in moving towards a true partnership and to get down to more concrete details about practical cooperation. Some Mediterranean Dialogue countries have already indicated their interest in contributing concretely, for example, to Operation Active Endeavour, NATO's counterterrorist operation in the Mediterranean . Some are already contributing to NATO's peacekeeping operations for example, in the Balkans. We can do more together, for example, in countering terrorism and encouraging defence reform and modernization of the armed forces. These will be the kind of things that are discussed at this event. It will be a first for us, in this format and certainly something to which we're all looking forward. That's it for this month. I hope... I hope that next month you will not see my face here but the Secretary General's if time permits will come and do the month briefing himself.