News conference

by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at the Informal meeting of NATO Defence Ministers and the Meeting of the NATO-Russia Council

JAMES APPATHURAI (Spokesman, NATO): Ladies and gentlemen, the Secretary General.

JAAP DE HOOP SCHEFFER (Secretary General, NATO): Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Let me give you some information on this morning's discussions.

The first one was, as you know, at 26 in the NATO Framework on Transformation where a few topics were discussed. The main one being the NATO Response Force, of course symbol of NATO's expeditionary… more expeditionary character, but also an important tool for Transformation. You will remember that at the Riga Summit we declared the so-called full operational capability of the NATO Response Force, meaning that the NATO Response Force is being able to carry out all its missions. But to be sustainable, we need to ensure that we have the forces for the long term and that we have a shared vision of the use of the NATO Response Force.

We have made progress on the way. We are, as you know, planning for a system of longer term NATO Response Force rotations. We have had a successful… in the end successful discussion on a trial period of common funding, short term deployments of the NATO Response Force, and then more specifically where it concerns airlift. But we need to have a reliable system of force generation for the NRF, not only now, but also for the future NRF rotations.

Ministers also shared their views on how the NRF should be used; what roles in what circumstances. This is certainly a discussion that we'll take up again in June and I think it was a very good topic for an informal Defence Ministers meeting. No decisions were passed, but we'll continue the discussion in Brussels in the Military Committee and in the Council.

Ministers also touched in the first part of the morning on missile defence, including the bilateral discussions underway between the United States and some European Allies on strategic missile defence, continental missile defence. As you know, NATO has no program for developing strategic missile defence, but you also know that the heads of state in Riga tasked, instructed us, to continue work on the political and military implications and including an update on further development as far as missile defence is concerned. So although NATO does not have a program, it is a very relevant theme. It is being discussed; it will be discussed and it has a direct link with proliferation. So I think it was a welcome discussion today.

Ministers also had a brief discussion on NATO Headquarters reform, but I'll keep that to myself since I'm supposed to lead that process.

Now following the NATO meeting there was a meeting, as you know, of the NATO-Russia Council in the presence of Sergei Ivanov, the Russian Defence Minister, which I think I could qualify as tour d'horizon where of course Afghanistan was discussed, Kosovo was discussed. It is the forum to have a serious political dialogue with our Russian friends and partners to discuss the security challenges we all face.

We also of course had a thorough review of NRC co-operation. You know that this year, 2007, is the anniversary of ten years of the Founding Act between Russia and NATO and five years of co-operation in the framework of the NATO-Russia Council and we went through the different forms of co-operation we have. We heard good news from Minister Ivanov on the important element, one of the more important elements, in the NATO-Russia Co-operation Framework, and that is the so-called Status of Forces Agreement. And I think it is important to note, but Minister Ivanov will certainly do that himself, that the decision has been made to present the Status of Forces Agreement to the State Duma. Of course the State Duma has its own and separate responsibility and role, but I think it is important to mention.

We discussed our project in the framework of counter-narcotics training for Afghanistan and Central Asian personnel. It is certainly something I think we should further discuss and perhaps widen.

Minister Ivanov also shared with us Russia's views on missile defence on the discussions taking place as we speak. We also discussed of course the co-operation we have with our Russian friends on theatre missile defence, to be separated from missile defence in general or continental missile defence, is theatre missile defence where it concerns, as you know, the protection of armed forces.

And I think it is useful to note that from all sides on the issue of missile defence there was agreement that we should share our views and opinions in an open and transparent way in the framework of the NATO-Russia Council. So I'm quite sure that this issue will come back.

As I said, we look toward the anniversaries of the Founding Act and of the NRC and I look forward to commemorating the ten and the five years.

I can also say that in the framework of our political dialogue, the subject of Iran was brought up and briefly discussed.

Let me then look briefly forward to what's going to follow - that is our important luncheon with our friends and partners in the Mediterranean Dialogue. An important one, second of the kind where Defence Ministers of NATO and their counterparts of the Mediterranean Dialogue nations will meet. What do we do there? We discuss to see how we can improve our co-operation; what we can do together; what we can do better together.

In that regard I may refer to the important decision at the summit in Riga to launch a training initiative. I think training is certainly an area where we will step up and should step up our joint offers. NATO will certainly offer more opportunities for Mediterranean Dialogue countries personnel to train alongside ours in areas of interest. It's a good way to discuss again how are we going to build up our interoperability. We'll certainly discuss the Operation Active Endeavour where there is an interest, as you know, with our Mediterranean Dialogue partners.

I should mention… now I've mentioned Active Endeavour. I forgot to mention this in the framework of the NATO-Russia Council that also this year, and I think it's a very positive element we'll see again, Russian participation in that operation. We'll see again a Russian naval ship at a certain stage entering the Mediterranean and sail alongside the NATO warships in the framework of this operation.

This is what I can tell you about this morning. I say again it's an informal meeting; it was an informal meeting; no decisions made, but a very useful one and a half days spent here in hospitable Seville.