Press briefing

by the NATO Spokesman, James Appathurai
on the Meetings of NATO Defence Ministers
on 14 and 15 June 2007

JAMES APPATHURAI (NATO Spokesperson): Good morning. Thanks for coming. Sorry to do it in such a big room, but for visual purposes, we'll do it here.

Let me give you an update of last night's discussions and a little bit of a bigger picture on operations. There were - you will not be surprised - two main topics of discussion yesterday evening. Afghanistan and Kosovo.

Let me start with Afghanistan. A few political points to begin with. A, Ministers all recognized how far this mission has come in the past year. ISAF has grown from 10,000 to 40,000 approximately. There were nine provincial reconstruction teams; there are now 25 and of course operations being conducted around the country. So there has been significant progress in the operation; also on the ground. You have seen the fact sheet outside; all the development that's been accomplished in terms of democratic development, institution building, education, health, et cetera. One of the Ministers said that President Karzai told him there's been more accomplished in Afghanistan in the last five years than there have been in the previous 50 and I think that's probably true.

There was a firm commitment by all 26 to stay the course. That was very, very clearly stated. Over the past few days, to take a moment to discuss force generation, there has been a force generation conference and then a discussion around the table yesterday. To give you a snapshot of what has been added, and might I add as far as I know very little has been withdrawn, if anything, seven countries have provisionally offered operational mentoring and liaison teams. You know that France has been public about that. A few countries will up their contributions in terms of simple force levels. Four countries offered unmanned aerial vehicles. This is an extremely important asset as ISAF conducts operations around a very big country. Having what we call intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) is absolutely mission critical. It's a very important contribution. One country has announced, though not yet with political confirmation, that they intend to establish a new provincial reconstruction team in an area of the country that has not yet had one. That's a positive step. So overall force generation has been a reasonable success.

Ministers also stressed the need to keep training and equipping the Afghan National Army. Over time that is the transition that we need to make - to have the Afghan National Force's in the lead. I mentioned countries offering or planning to offer more mentoring and liaison teams; France I think as I said has been public about establishing three of these in the form of 150 total new personnel.

There was, again no surprise to you, discussion of the importance of a comprehensive approach. In other words, that NATO cannot alone do what it needs to do; that there needs to be a co-ordinated military and civilian effort, of course with the Afghans in the lead, engaging the UN, the EU, the G8, the NGOs and NATO all working towards common goals.

There was extensive discussion of civilian casualties and the importance of doing what we can to minimize those. A, because it's the right thing to do, and B, because we need to continue to maintain what is currently high support amongst the Afghan people for international forces. There was also a shared recognition that the Taliban and other opponents of the democratic process in Afghanistan are deliberately using civilians and civilian built-up areas as shields in order indeed to draw them into the fighting. With that in mind there was, as I said, an extensive discussion amongst Ministers, but also with our military commanders. The conclusions include that the co-ordination procedures within ISAF and between ISAF OAF and the Afghans have been reviewed. They are appropriate; they are understood. The key is full and appropriate application of them. Tactics, procedures, rules of engagement, are and will be kept under constant review.

Ministers agreed on the need to investigate incidents properly and transparently and they look forward to discussing all of this of course with Defence Minister Wardak later this morning.

On Kosovo there was a clear and unanimous support for a UN Security Council Resolution based on the Ahtisaari plan as soon as possible. Ministers received from our military authorities, our top two military authorities, the Supreme Allied Commander and the Chairman of the Military Committee, a review of KFOR's military preparations. Ministers are confident that NATO has the forces, the capabilities, the reinforcements, in place to handle any eventuality.

Two more points. First on Somalia; Allies have agreed a request from the African Union to help them airlift troops in support of their mission in Somalia similar to the airlift support that NATO is providing to the AU in Darfur. No specific request has yet been received for actual troop deployment, but NATO stands ready to help.

Finally, Ministers has also agreed, nations have also agreed a request from the Iraqi government to provide gendarmerie training. In other words, to complement the military training with the kind of training for example the carabinieri do provide. So that is a slight expansion of the NATO capability.

That is what I had to say. I'm happy to take your questions if you have any. And you do.

Q: Pascal Mallet, Agence France Presse. I applied the procedure.

APPATHURAI: (Laughs) Thank you.

Q: Could you tell us James what are those countries that offered unmanned vehicles or whatever… ?

APPATHURAI:I can't. I'm sorry.

Q: (Inaudible) either?

APPATHURAI:It's up to the nations to decide. The only one that has been public about providing more trainers is your own country.

Q: Could you tell us at least a figure, a global figure, how many are there today and how many are supposed to come?

APPATHURAI: Well that is an interesting point. We do not have yet what we need in terms of operational mentoring and liaison teams. We have about 20; the current requirement is for about 46, but that requirement will continue to grow. The challenge here is that the Afghan National Army is continuing to develop and then deploy what they call kandaks (what we would probably call a battalion) and in those battalions we aim to embed training teams that can, very small teams, that can help them, guide them, mentor them, as they learn to do what our forces have long experience in doing. So this will be an ongoing challenge. We will have to continue to keep up with the growth of the Afghan National Army. As they deploy more kandaks, we need to be able to provide more mentoring and liaison teams for them and right now we do not have, even before the growth, everything that we need to give them this capability.

Yes, please.

Q: How many kandaks is the ultimate aim of training? Do you have… ?

APPATHURAI: I don't know how that breaks down I have to say. I'll come back to you on that.

Q: James, a bunch of questions actually.

APPATHURAI: Really?

Q: The first one… when you talked about civilian casualties you didn't… the Secretary General has spoken in recent days about compensation and moving quickly to compensate people whose property is destroyed or people who are injured. Was that something which came up?

Secondly, on Somalia, I'm not quite sure I got your exact phrasing there, but you said that there has not been a specific request for troops but NATO is ready to consider such thing if it's coming. Could you just elaborate on that?

APPATHURAI: I'll be more clear.

Q: And just briefly on the gendarmerie request from the Iraqis, you said that an invitation has come in, a request has come in from the Iraqis. Has NATO responded to that? Are you going to do that and if so, what would that mean in terms of manning for the training centre in Baghdad?

APPATHURAI: Three things. First, we should not use the word compensation. I did not use it and it has legal ramifications which no nation accepts. There is a fund. I believe five though have just seen it this morning; seven countries have contributed to it. I think it's more like five and it has several hundred thousand dollars in it. Yes, it came up yesterday. A number of nations discussed the fund. I did not hear specific pledges in around that table, but I think this discussion will now continue within the NATO framework as to whether or not other countries will put more money into it. Certainly the Secretary General raised it; certainly others Ministers addressed it too; but I could not attach a dollar figure to new funds that may or may not now flow from that discussion.

In terms of Somalia, the African Union has requested that NATO stand ready to provide airlift for their mission in Somalia. NATO has agreed to stand ready. Now the African Union will have to come with a specific request to move so and so troops at this date into Somalia. Those requests have not yet come, but NATO is perfectly ready and available to do it.

In terms of Iraqi paramilitary training, it should begin in September without about 50 NATO personnel. The intention is to bridge the gap between routine police work and military work. The goal is to create a well trained cadre for each of the eight Iraqi National Police brigades; 12 week training period and it will emphasize, by the way, ethnic and religious tolerance.

Was there anything else or did I capture it all? Okay, thanks. Please?

Q: Mark John from Reuters. Just another couple of follow-ups actually. On the OMLT's, so how many teams were actually added or offered during this meeting and where does that take us? Does it take us to 20 or are we now past 20?

On the civilian casualties, can you be a little bit more specific about the co-ordination procedures? I mean it seems a bit vague. What measures are being put in place to actually increase co-ordination?

And finally on Kosovo, was there any discussion of the problems caused for NATO-EU co-operation because of the differences of various Allies - Turkey, Malta, Cyprus and so on?

APPATHURAI: We have passed 20, but I don't know the specific number of how many it will be. That's not clear from the information I've got this morning.

In terms of the specific measures, the Supreme Allied Commander has had a very exhaustive look at what the co-ordination procedures are within NATO, as I said, for communication. He addressed last night in some detail the co-ordination procedures between Operation Enduring Freedom and ISAF in terms of… what's the word I would use… in terms of alerting each other to military operations; in terms of deconfliction of military operations; in terms of in extremis mutual support, which as you know, is necessary at times. I cannot go further obviously in public about what these procedures are, but they are exhaustive and it is his assessment and Ministers accepted that assessment that these procedures are appropriate and the challenges, as it has always been, to implement them fully.

Kosovo. Yes, the issue of NATO-EU co-operation in Kosovo and potential difficulties in co-operation was raised. For the moment this is of course a virtual scenario because until a UN Security Council Resolution is passed, we remain under 1244 and the existing arrangements will remain in place. You know that NATO and the EU at the staff level have worked out extensive arrangements for co-operation. Those arrangements are well known. And the forces on the ground, if and when a UN Security Council Resolution is passed, will co-ordinate as necessary together. There will be NATO, again in the event of a UN Security Council Resolution, there will be NATO forces on the ground. There will be, I am quite sure, EU police forces on the ground doing what they need to do. That's all I'll say on that subject.

Please?

Q: Lorne Cook, AFP. I'll take a really wild shot. You had the right people there last night. Was Gaza discussed?  A possible multinational force for Gaza?

APPATHURAI: Only informally. Of course Ministers discussed the situation in Gaza, but just amongst themselves. This was not a formal topic of discussion at the ministerial. I'm sure all of us were talking about Gaza yesterday.

Q: Steve Fiddler from the Financial Times. I'm not quite clear whether you say the tactics, procedures, rules of engagement, are all appropriate. You also say the SACEUR is sort of satisfied with the procedures in place for the co-ordination between the various things. What I don't understand is whether anything has changed. There seems in the past to have been a situation where Ministers have been worried about the number of civilian casualties caused in operations and you say these… all procedures are appropriate. Does that mean in the last few months these procedures have been changed to reduce the number or the likelihood of civilian casualties? Or is it just a matter that the procedures have not been followed in one way or another and they need to be followed better?

APPATHURAI: Well I can tell you two things. One is procedures have been changed and improved over the past let's say 12 months and I'll give you one very clear example in terms of co-ordination between international forces and Afghans. Last October there was an incident during Operation Medusa where there was a reasonable number of civilian casualties in a joint ISAF-OAF Afghan operation. Why? We discovered afterwards that there was a community of what I would call nomads (people who move around, don't have one fixed location) who had moved in recent days into what amounts to the tall grass around a town where operations were conducted. The Afghans on the ground knew these people had come in. We, the international forces, did not know that they were there and they were caught up in the fighting and unfortunately many of them were killed.

Since then co-ordination procedures, and equipment by the way, have been improved between Afghan forces and international forces. The statistics I have seen in the last few days show over the past months a clear decline in civilian casualties caused by international forces. Those are our numbers for internal purposes, but they do demonstrate that there has been improvement.

Q: James you mentioned yourself if, the word if, if the resolution is passed then NATO will co-operate with the EU on the ground in Kosovo. Did anybody from the Ministers or is anybody at NATO really thinking about the other scenario for the other if? If the resolution is not passed? Of course it's not happening in a timely manner that NATO is asking; already there are several delays of the status and there is going to be another longer delay on that. So is NATO prepared to work together with the EU in the scenario if there is any resolution which will not resolve the status, but it will change the international presence in Kosovo… in that case having resolution giving mandate to EU or NATO, but not resolving the status? Is NATO prepared for that scenario?

APPATHURAI: I'm not sure I really understand that scenario, but let me say this. First, everyone in NATO or the NATO countries are all focused on plan A and plan A is a UN Security Council Resolution based on the Ahtisaari proposals and of course everything that flows from that for the work that NATO would have to do as the international military presence. Of course NATO plans for all eventualities now and in future. That's all I want to say on that subject, but you do know and you know NATO well, we're very, very good at planning.

Q: Did Turkey make any objection about the co-operation in Kosovo and Afghanistan?

APPATHURAI: I obviously won't get into what individual countries said at the table.

Q: Jim Nuger from Bloomberg. What discussion was there last night of Iranian made arms turning up in Afghanistan? Did any Allies provide evidence to either corroborate or rebut the American suspicions?

APPATHURAI: The line that you have seen from NATO remains the same and that is that ISAF and international forces have come across weapons that seem to be of Iranian origin in Afghanistan. There is from the point of view of NATO and ISAF no clear intelligence linking this to the active involvement of the Iranian government. Was this discussed yesterday? There was not extensive discussion amongst Ministers of this issue.

Q: If I'm wrong on some day… the European EU police mission in Afghanistan should kick-off. These differences that even the Secretary General was talking about circling around Turkey, will they have any impact? Do you foresee any impact on this co-operation in Afghanistan which is not hypothetical as contrary to Kosovo?

APPATHURAI: I think we have to keep the situation in Afghanistan in context. There are, if I understand correctly, about 110 EU Police personnel in Afghanistan at present. They are already receiving support from ISAF and ISAF nations. For example, the fundamental offer of in extremis support as we call it, emergency support supplies to them and ISAF will stand by that. What the EU is talking about is adding another, if I understand correctly, 50 personnel. So we have existing arrangements in place that are working perfectly well.

Q: Has there been a discussion yet or is that going to be today on the training initiative for the Middle East. And I don't know if I should be asking you this question, but has the EU been asked to stand ready for airlift also for Sudan?

APPATHURAI: Good question. I don't know the answer to this, as usual with the questions you ask me. I don't know the answer if the EU has been asked. In terms of the training initiative I don't expect any discussion of that today. This discussion will focus I would say 96 percent or 100 percent on Afghanistan. Today's discussions will be -

Q: There hasn't been any discussion so far?

APPATHURAI: No, but discussion amongst Ministers doesn't mean there hasn't been work going on in the normal NATO channels. We'll come back and talk about it.

Go ahead.

Q: Dutch TV. For training Afghanistan how many police and military have been trained and how many are still on the payroll of the Afghan authorities.

APPATHURAI: I'm sorry?

Q: So how many police have you trained and how many are still on the payroll of the Afghan authorities?

APPATHURAI: We don't train police. NATO doesn't train police in Afghanistan at all. That's for the European Union -

Q: Do you not… western coalition… ?

APPATHURAI: That's a good question. I don't know. I only know what NATO has done. NATO provides of course training and equipment for the Afghan National Army. It would be very hard to break down what NATO does with the U.S. The U.S. is investing billions literally in training and equipping Afghan National Security Forces. That includes army and police. It is a very intermingled relationship because the EU does it; the Germans as you know have the lead for the G8. The U.S. is by far the biggest investor in this process and as NATO for example provides OMLT's as we call them (mentoring and liaison teams), that frees the U.S. to take out their, virtually the same thing, ETT's they call them, and move them into police or other training. So it is a very complicated web, but NATO countries have invested for example millions, millions and millions of Euros worth of equipment. We have these 20 training teams working with the military and the U.S. as our biggest investor in Afghanistan, is as I said, putting billions into this right now.

Q: Has there been any discussion on the C17 deal that these 15 NATO countries and Sweden are trying to obtain. We've heard there's been some problems with that.

APPATHURAI: Yes. In fact, I think the reports on problems are exactly backwards. In fact, as some of you may know, a group of, as you say, 15 or 16 nations working together to purchase or lease three to four C17 aircraft. Yes there was discussion of it yesterday because we are moving quite close now to establishing a charter and a structure to take that forward. Yesterday, to my mind, saw quite a lot of progress in moving this forward and we're very, very close. So in fact, to my mind, yesterday's reports were, I say this frankly on or off the record, exactly 180 degrees wrong. Yesterday was a day of progress and hopefully we'll take the decisive step very, very soon.

We'll go here and then there.

Q: Est-ce que je peux poser une question en français?  Pas de problème… ?

APPATHURAI: S’il te plaît…

Q: Bon merci.  Non non c’est pour ceux; mes camarades qui éventuellement ne comprendraient pas.  Il y a deux problèmes quand même qui soient un peu en suspends.  On parle du Kosovo comme si le seul problème qui se posait c’était entre NATO et EU à cause d’une obsession turque.  En fait, il me semble que les discussions d’hier entre les ministres ont aussi posé sur les petits problèmes qui pourraient y avoir au sein de l’OTAN puisque les pays de l’Union Européenne qui sont aussi membre de l’OTAN sont pas schysophrène et donc s’ils ont une attitude diplomatique d’un côté, ils l’auront de la même manière au cas ou aucune résolution ne serait votée ou une résolution serait votée mais on considérerait que le veto russe n’a aucune implication légale.  Donc première question, est-ce qu’il y a eu ou pas un débat?  Il semble que oui, dans le communiqué final il y a des traces de ce débat, c’est un compromis apparammant?  Qu’est-ce que tu peux en dire là dessus?  Et sur l’Afghanistan, je ne comprends pas très bien, les procédures sont parfaites, les pertes civiles sont en baisse alors pourquoi discuter?

APPATHURAI:  Il n’y a pas eu de discussion disons trop évoluée hier soir au sujet du processus politique en ce qui concerne le Kosovo.  La position otanienne est claire, évidemment tu as raison, personne voudrait une situation ou il n’y aurait pas de résolution au Conseil de sécurité parce que ça risque des différences de vues, des différences de voix au sein de l’Europe au sein de l’Union Européenne, potentiellement au sein de l’OTAN en ce qui concerne la reconnaissance, le processus qui suit.  C’est pour ça que tout le monde vise. Comme je l’ai dit, le plan A.  On a besoin comme communauté internationale d’une voix politique qui couvre de façon non seulement politique mais légale, juridique la route devant nous qui garderait ensemble la famille européenne, ontanienne à ce sujet.

Afghanistan, oui même ci et comme j’ai dit, c’est des chiffres internes que j’ai vu alors je ne vais pas trop les vanter, même si les chiffres que nous avons internes démontrent une baisse, évidemment il y a eu déjà trop de pertes civiles que c’est une question qui est bien correctement vue par les afghans comme très très sensible qui est vue aussi par nos populations, dans nos pays de l’OTAN, comme très sensible alors un perte civile, une casualty, est déjà trop, il faut toujours travailler pour améliorer les procédures, ça c’est la première question et la deuxième, on peut avoir des règles d’engagement et des procédures qui sont bien dessinés et nous les avons, il faut la prochaine étape c’est de bien les mettre en œuvre.  Ça comprend le training et l’application, le jugement des soldats, pour le moment on travaille toujours, il faut dans une situation très compliquée de viser ça de très prêt. 

Troisième point, et ça je vais le répéter, on peut pas ignorer le fait que le taliban fait exipret pour attirer des attaques sur des civiles, il faut le dire, aussi il ne faut pas oublier que les talibans attaquent ou utilisent des attaques de façon indiscriminées qui tuent des civiles y compris des bombes suicide des IED's… des bombes improvisées.

Let's start again. Let's start from the front and then we'll head back.

Q: Still on the civilian casualties. I just wondered if you could give us more details on the statistics of a falling count there because I think it's going to surprise a lot of the people who have seen dozens of casualties in the last few months still. So you can provide some more details James?

APPATHURAI: For the moment no. Let me go and look again at the internal figures that I have, but for the moment that's all I'll say on that subject.

Q: DPA German Press Agency. Just to clarify because I'm not quite sure whether I understood correctly. When you said casualties had been going down in the last month, were you talking in the singular or in the plural? In the last couple of months or in the last month meaning May?

Second question. This airlift to Somalia, has there already been taken any decision or any announcement on who is actually providing this airlift capacity which is, as we all know, scarce.

APPATHURAI: Thank you.

First to be clear, I was talking about the past months and I was talking about civilian casualties inflicted by ISAF, not en total. Simply ISAF. I'm speaking only for ISAF.

Second, who will provide airlift? That will be determined at the time of the request; from where, at what time, and then the airlift authorities of NATO, those who arrange airlift, will make the determination and of course it will depend on a volunteer by contributing forces.

Q: James point nine of the communiqué - NATO will not tolerate any threats to a safe and secure environment in Kosovo and will react swiftly and resolutely to any provocations. Is NATO ready to react also in the case of civil riots in Kosovo?

APPATHURAI: There is a clear - what we would in military terms - order of battle. A clear progression in the event of civilian casualties of crowd and riot events. First in line is the Kosovo Police Service; second is the UNMIK Police and third, if necessary, is KFOR. We have arrangements in place. They have been used many times for that progression, if necessary, to be followed. And yes, KFOR is fully ready to play its role as part of that team in the event of riots.

Yes, the last one?

Q: Civilian casualties. You just said that the figures you have for declining civilian casualties relates to instances involving ISAF.

APPATHURAI: Yes.

Q: Earlier you'd said international forces.

APPATHURAI: Sorry. No. I want to be clear. It's ISAF.

Q: It's ISAF.

APPATHURAI: I only have numbers for ISAF.

Q: Okay. Thanks.

APPATHURAI: Thanks for making that clear.
Folks, thank you.