Press briefing

by the NATO Spokesman, James Appathurai
and the International Military Staff Spokesman,
Col. Brett Boudreau,

JAMES APPATHURAI (NATO Spokesman): Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming.

Let me... I have my little agenda here for the briefing and point one is written down. This is Colonel Boudreau, who is a Canadian like me, as you have noticed, but more importantly, he is the spokesman of the Military Committee, my counterpart on the military side. As you know, we have had an important day at the Military Committee and Colonel Boudreau has offered to come down and brief you on it.

So I turn the floor over to you, Brett. 

COLONEL BRETT BOUDREAU (IMS Spokesman): Thank you, James. Thank you for the chance to talk to you about the activities of the last couple of days. As you're likely aware, yesterday and today, NATO and NATO Partner Chiefs of Defence are meeting, and in fact, met yesterday and are still meeting today. This is the third of three such meetings per year at the Chiefs of Staff level. You might recall the last meeting was in Victoria, Canada in September. We meet in five different formats: NATO only, Partnership for Peace, Mediterranean Dialogue, Ukraine, and Russia. Yesterday the NATO Chiefs met together and with their Mediterranean Dialogue counterparts. Today it was the NATO Chiefs and the 23 Partnership for Peace members, including interestingly, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Georgia and Russia were in attendance.

The meetings are still ongoing. In fact, the sessions are scheduled to end at 18:00 tonight, but I'm happy to give you a snapshot of the discussions to this point. You might be interested to know the NATO Chiefs or the NATO-EU Chiefs are still in town tomorrow as the EU Military Committee is meeting.

The agenda was fairly standard, ongoing operations, particularly Afghanistan and Kosovo, featuring highly. And of course, taking forward the work stemming from the Noordwijk ministerials and in the run-up to the Bucharest Summit.

General John Craddock, the SACEUR, set the scene at the various sessions with an operational overview of the military situation in Afghanistan and in Kosovo. With regard to the latter I can say that KFOR stands ready to assist the UN and institutions of self-government in Kosovo, to continue to provide a safe and secure environment for the upcoming elections and for the period following the release of the troika report in early December. And this work is being done in close cooperation with counterparts in other international organizations.

On Afghanistan the discussions were wide-ranging. The MC is of the view that they have seen progress on force generation. In pure numerical terms the number of troops deployed has risen by more than 8500 in a year, but there are still shortfalls. Given the deployed resources the MC, the Military Committee, remains satisfied in the main with the pace of progress of the security portion of the security, governance, development triad. With more we could do more and do it faster.

The Military Committee also spoke about the requirement that efforts by the Afghan government and international community need to be stepped up in terms of institutional reform, particularly with respect to the Afghan National police.

OMLTs, the Operational Mentor and Liaison Teams, featured prominently. It was discussed at the MC meetings that these have a large payoff for a relatively small investment for countries and that fielding more training and liaison teams for the Afghan National Army remains a key priority.

There is common intent and purpose and some strong language on the part of the Chiefs of Defence, including some Chiefs from our partner countries to review national contributions in this regard.

There are some other operational support and process-related issues that featured in the discussions. These refer principally to some education and training initiatives, developing a policy on how to work more closely with international allies in operations, what we call a comprehensive approach. And in better integrating resource considerations and Military Committee advice to political authorities.

The Turkish Chief of Defence Büyükanit provided a useful overview of the situation in and near his country respecting the activities of the PKK. I can also tell you that the CMC, General Henault, had bilateral discussions with Army General Kyrychenko from the Ukraine, Army General Baluevsky from Russia and the Chiefs of Defence from Israel, Serbia and Armenia. So a busy couple of days.

In the Partnership for Peace forum there was an operational update, an exchange of views and presentations, including a joint brief from Sweden and Norway on how like-minded smaller nations can work together to derive economies of scale from sharing facilities, equipment purchases, maintenance facilities, etcetera.

With respect to Ukraine that meeting is under way right now, but they will be discussing progress on the transformation of the Ukrainian armed forces, on the NATO-Ukraine work plan of this year and next.

The NATO-Russia Council meeting in the Military Committee format is due for later on this afternoon and we expect that operational issues will be discussed and that the NATO-Russia work plan for next year and beyond is on the agenda.

Earlier today, as you may well know, the 26 Chiefs of Defence elected a new Chairman of the Military Committee, NATO's top officer to replace Canadian General Ray Henault, who'll be retiring next June. There were three candidates, the Italian, Spanish and Polish Chiefs of Defence, and the next chairman of the Military Committee will be the Italian Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola.

There's a backgrounder on the election process, the news release on the results and some background material available on the NATO website and I've brought some material here for you on the side.

Let me just briefly describe for you what happened from a process point of view. All Chiefs of Defence get a vote. The count is done by secret ballot. The votes are turned up one by one and displayed on a screen, and the winning candidate needed a single majority, that is to say, 14 votes. When that total is reached no more ballots are counted. So I can't tell you out of 26 how many votes each candidate received. The result from this morning though is that the Italian Chief of Defence received enough votes to win.

And that's all I have pending questions after James's briefing.

APPATHURAI: Let's go straight to questions, then I'll finish up. Well, actually, maybe I should do it quickly, what I have to do and then we can take all the questions together.

Thanks, Brett. Brett mentioned force generation. Let me provide you with slightly more detail on the force generation conference of last week because there was some concern that we had not been as forthcoming as we might have been.

In essence, let me say first, and this is not the first time you've heard this, force generation is a continuous process. It is not a single event. So force generation conferences are an opportunity to take stock but we do this and the military does this on a day-to-day basis. We had a Defence Ministers meeting at Noordwijk where a number of countries indicated political interest in increasing their capabilities and adjusting what they have in Afghanistan.

The force generation at SHAPE is designed, of course, to consolidate force offers that have been made recently.

Several countries have indicated, at the force generation conference, their willingness to deploy additional personnel and equipment to the south of Afghanistan. A number of nations offered forces for deployment to Uruzgan in particular. I know this is of interest to the Dutch.

These include force protection units, as well as offers for additional operational mentor and liaison teams, which can potentially bring the number of nations, I say potentially, in RC South from the current number of 14 to 18 by the end of 2008.

Q: Can you repeat please? The figure?

APPATHURAI: Fourteen to eighteen. These offers included, as I mentioned, operational mentor and liaison teams. This is not specifically for the south, but in general, operational mentor and liaison teams, reserve forces, fixed wing—that means aircraft, airplanes—fixed wing theatre lift and rotary wing, i.e. helicopters, including medical evacuation, utility and attack rotary wing helicopters.

I've already mentioned, of course, also force protection capabilities. So all this to say there was progress made. We are moderately encouraged by what was offered, but there are still significant shortfalls that we would... that NATO would like to see met in the area of fixed wing, rotary wing and maneuver capacity.

So we will continue to press on this process, and I stress again, process, of force generation, the Allies to fully 100 percent resource the statement of requirements to which all 26 have agreed.

Two more points very quickly, and I mean very quickly. One is that Foreign Minister Moratinos of Spain will first meet with the Secretary General and then address the North Atlantic Council on Monday in his capacity of Chairman in Office of the OSCE. There are a number of issues, of course, which would be on the agenda as the OSCE has a very important role to play in a number of areas where NATO is present, but also where NATO is not present and where they take the lead, for example, in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Final point to mention, yesterday Støre, Jonas Støre, again, met with the Secretary General and then briefed the North Atlantic Council on his thoughts, on Norway's thoughts on what they call the "Northern Dimension." It was a very interesting briefing. It did not, and I should say this right from the beginning, come with a call from Norway for any concrete steps from NATO, but it was an insight into cooperation that is currently under way between the northern countries in NATO and outside of NATO as well, but in NATO to address issues of the North.

We, of course, have certainly the past 12, 15 years within the Alliance looked very much to the Balkans, looked very much to the south, the Mediterranean cooperation element of our partnerships. But the Northern Dimension is one that does have a particular structural element within NATO, but there are a number of security and energy related issues which are of interest in northern countries and Minister Støre gave a really very interesting briefing to Allies on that.

That is all I would like to say, and let us please open the floor to questions and we can start right here.

Q: Can you give a little bit more information about... you say there are 14 to 18... increasing from 14 to 18 countries in RC South. Does that mean there are four new countries willing to contribute troops, or is there a...?

APPATHURAI: It's a little bit more complex than that. But I can't go into any more details. That's really as far as I could go. Now the nations themselves have to identify what they want to do, what they want to say about their own contributions. I'm sorry, that is really the edge of my leash.

Q: Two questions to Colonel Boudreau. The first one is, did you... was it discussed in the Military Committee the American anti-missile system? And the second question is, when I look at this sheet of paper I can see that quite recently yet another Italian admiral has been the president of the Military Committee. How do you explain that? Such a quick nomination of another Italian to that post? Thank you.

BOUDREAU: Thank you, sir. No, the issue of missile defence from a U.S. context was not discussed in the course of the meetings. With respect to the Chairman of the Military Committee the fact is that nations put up, nations that are willing to, put up their Chief of Defence generally towards the end of their period of service as the national Chief of Defence. In this case there were three countries that looked to assume the duties as the top NATO military officer, and 26 Chiefs of Defence vote on who it is they think should be the top officer, and it's as simple as that.

APPATHURAI: I think we had a question here, a sort of follow-up.

Q: (Inaudible)... After Noordwijk... you know Holland is looking for more support in Uruzgan. After Noordwijk, has Holland received any more pledges for this region?

APPATHURAI: There are three countries that I understand don't mind if I mention that they are willing to provide contributions to the south. That is Slovakia, the Czech Republic and France. There are others, I think, that are considering making contributions, increasing their presence in the south and it is for them to announce it.

Q: James, you just said that you did not want to give the names of the four countries, but if I understand we have already the name of three of those four countries, so what is the fourth one? It could be simpler for us.

APPATHURAI: It would be simpler for you, yes, but less simple for me, so that's where I stop.

Q: Okay. It's not Germany?

APPATHURAI: (Laughs).

Q: Well, the second part of the question is...

UNIDENTIFIED: (Inaudible)... NATO country.

Q: Okay, it's not Sweden. So, the second part is, of course we are just having a briefing before the (inaudible) NATO-Russia Council, but may I ask a question about the fact that we have had a declaration in Moscow or somewhere in Russia today about the fact that Russia considered to install or deploy its short-range missile called Islander in Belarus. For that you would have to, if I understand well, to renege or to withdraw from the INF Treaty. Is that the way NATO understands it, and I am sure that the military chiefs that have always prepared for future conflicts have discussed one day or another of what would we do on the western side in case of a short-range missile targeting European or North American... rather European targets?

APPATHURAI: I don't know...

Q: (Inaudible)...

APPATHURAI: Yes, thank you. Let me start. I have seen those same comments. Let me say only this: Any discussion of targeting western Europe with missiles from any party is A, anachronistic, B, unwelcome and C, unhelpful. As to any specific discussion at the NAC... sorry, at the MC Committee, I'll leave that to Brett.

BOUDREAU: I would just probably start by reminding ourselves that, in fact, Russia is participating in a number of cooperative activities with NATO, including providing ships on a periodic basis to the Article 5 defence of NATO counterterrorism operation in the Mediterranean and in fact, we are quite satisfied with the progress of other activities with Russian military forces, including the development of the ballistic theatre missile defence. So in that sense this is one area where NATO and Russia have demonstrated a good degree of cooperation. A number of exercises have already taken place in that regard.

With respect to what will be discussed this afternoon I'm not certain. There generally is a surprise or two at those sessions. I would say that. So in fact, at the end of the day when that session is complete we'll be issuing a news release to remark on the content and quality of those discussions.

APPATHURAI: That makes us good cop and bad cop. Go ahead.

Q: Two questions. One on the Military Committee and one on the Russian ambassador to NATO.

I wasn't quite clear about the procedure. It's a secret ballot, but then you said the votes are turned up and then displayed on the screen. Is it possible therefore in the end to see who voted for whom? And how many rounds took place today in the voting?

And the second, James, I wonder if you could just explain to us the vetting procedure for the new Russian envoy to NATO? Has that started yet, is it completed, could you just give us a bit of the detail as to what sort of issues are raised during that procedure?

BOUDREAU: The vote is secret in form and fact. I watched it take place from the translator's booth and essentially what happens is each of the Chiefs of Defence is given a folded ballot. They mark the name of the candidate and the country that they would like to win.

Those are collected, they're shuffled, so that you can't just say oh it's in alphabetical order so you've got no idea and one of the staff officers simply reads out the name of the officer. And that's displayed on a screen as the first choice. And when you reach 14 votes then the votes are stopped. There's no need to continue with voting when a minimum of 14 have been counted as a first priority for a candidate. We're not at liberty to inform you how many votes there were, just that there are three candidates and one, in fact, received the majority of the votes.

Q: Number of rounds?

BOUDREAU: Well, as I say, I'm not at liberty to tell you. Our perspective is that there's three candidates and Admiral Di Paola is in fact elected as the Chairman elect. Please.

Q: (Inaudible)...

Q: Why the secrecy about a public function?

BOUDREAU: I don't know that it’s necessarily a public function. There's an election process and the process was followed and we've obtained a winning candidate.

APPATHURAI: Oh yes, Rogozin. First, my understanding is that his nomination procedure, even within the Russian Federation is not yet complete. The Upper House has followed the Lower House by approving his nomination, but the next step, and I think the final step is that President Putin has to sign the form naming him. I have little doubt that that will happen.

As far as the next steps, I'm not sure it's for NATO to vet him. I believe it is... the procedure is simply that the Russian... the new Russian ambassador will present his credentials to the Secretary General. If there's a vetting process for a Russian ambassador by NATO I'm not aware of it.

Q: (Inaudible)... security kind of (inaudible)...?

APPATHURAI: All of our partners get a yellow pass. They get access to certain parts of the building, access to documents which are targeted to them, that have the appropriate level of clearance, but also they have the need to know. And frankly that's a system that works within our own organization as well. You can have clearance but you still need to know.

So we have arrangements in place for them and I can only imagine, unless there were the most egregious examples of espionage and that's not what we're talking about, his nomination will be... if it is completed it will be welcomed by the Secretary General and we look forward to working with him.

Q: (Inaudible)...does this affect (inaudible)... the deadline?

APPATHURAI: There is no deadline. It's an internal Russian procedure. They have decided to make that step.  I understand that it can happen now very quickly and may well happen before the end of the year, but these are only rumours that I've heard. It's certainly up to them 100 percent.

Q: (Inaudible)... Lithuanian Television and Radio.  Both for Colonel Boudreau and James to you. What are the military implications of Russia's suspension from the CFE Treaty? Can you comment on that to some extent?

APPATHURAI: Shall I?

BOUDREAU: You'd better go first.

APPATHURAI: (Laughs). The guy in the suit will talk about it. Let me speak to what the issues are. The issues are, of course, that at present the CFE Treaty and from a NATO perspective, the adapted CFE Treaty as well, because we abide... all NATO nations abide by the provisions of the adapted treaty.

It provides for confidence-building in two ways. One, by putting limits on the amount of what we call treaty-limited equipment, things like tanks or artillery pieces in specific regions and on the movement. And second, by providing transparency because it allows for mutual inspection. For both of those reasons we believe, NATO believes, that the adapted CFE Treaty should enter into force as quickly as possible, but as I say, we abide by its provisions anyway until such a time as that's possible.

To move away from that would allow for, if, and I supposed it's the Russian Federation who wants to suspend, so it would allow the Russian Federation to move significant numbers, unlimited numbers, if necessary, of this treaty-limited equipment wherever it wanted, which could—could, I stress—be perceived as less than reassuring in specific regions flanking the Russian Federation, and then the word flanking is chosen deliberately.

So NATO Allies (a), regret any moves towards a moratorium, something which I don't believe is recognized in the treaty anyway, but de toute façon, any moves towards a moratorium would certainly not welcome the entry into force of a unilateral suspension by the Russian Federation of its adherence to the CFE Treaty, precisely because it would undermine the stability and the transparency that we believe that the treaty, and the adapted treaty in particular, provide to the Russian Federation as much as to us.

BOUDREAU: I would only add to that... I wouldn't speculate on what those might be, but I would only add that from the Military Committee perspective the issue was... the issue of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty was an issue that was discussed at length in the previous session with the Russian General Baluevsky. I anticipate that it'll be a subject of considerable discussion today, although I'm speculating on that, but I would be surprised if it was not a matter of discussion today. In terms of the actual implications and you're a better speculator of what that might mean than I would be. I won't go down that way.

Q: Brett, coming back to the election of the Chairman of the Military Committee, can you explain to us the final how does it work, the vote hitting the final... once you reach 14 votes no votes are taken into account? What the first round when the three candidates are playing and what was the cutting number of votes for the stopping of the election?

And the second question, since everybody was highly qualified and you said that the best candidate was chosen, the three candidates were very, very good indeed. Has the election something to do with geologistics... geopolitics of things, countries that are more credible than others, or something like that. And what does it mean for the candidate or the country whose candidate is third in the run?

Thank you.

APPATHURAI: Good luck.

BOUDREAU: There's no such thing as third. There's only an officer who has obtained the majority of votes from his colleagues. Now, there does seem to be a wide knowledge that there was more than one round, and in that event I won't... I won't sit here and obfuscate in that regard. I will acknowledge that there were two rounds. But that's... I won't observe on any more of the detail of that other than to indicate that.

The fact is that 26 Chiefs of Defence in secret ballot decided who it is they would like to have act as their representative on the behalf of the remainder of the Chiefs of Defence. Three very well qualified candidates were on the ballot and I have no view on the rationale or how it is people came to vote the way they did. Other than to say the fact is we're quite and very happy to have an officer as qualified as Admiral Di Paola, and in June 2008 he will assume those duties from General Henault.

A lot of work is to be done between now and then. I would point out, of course, the ongoing operations, particularly Afghanistan, the ministerials, the Bucharest Summit, so in fact this is just a... the formal election process but the actual real work for admiral Di Paola will start in June '08.

APPATHURAI: There's a question there, and then Brooks and then we'll come up.

Q: James, what are your comments on the report by Amnesty International that NATO was handing over prisoners in Afghanistan for torture?

APPATHURAI: Yes, we... excuse me. Our position is relatively clear. First, NATO has great respect for Amnesty and the concerns that they have raised should be looked into, there is no doubt. But, we have confidence in our detention policy. It has been developed in consultation with the ICRC and meets all appropriate international standards and the ICRC, on its own behalf, conducts follow-up of detainees and prison inspection.

NATO ISAF has no evidence of systematic torture of detainees handed over by ISAF to Afghan authorities. That's the first point.

Nor, might I add, did I see any such evidence in the Amnesty report, which I read very carefully.

Second point to make is that Afghanistan is a sovereign country, with a constitutional requirement to protect human rights and the legal authority and responsibility to handle detainees within their own country. It is not for NATO to create a parallel detention system inside or outside of the law of the land.

For all these reasons NATO does not agree with the Amnesty proposal to suspend handover of detainees. Where we do agree with Amnesty, however, is that much more needs to be done to invest in the Afghan penal system, detention system. NATO countries are doing that in a very significant way already. The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Italy as the G8 lead, are all investing very heavily in the justice system. NATO believes that these efforts do need to be stepped up and we will continue to do that.

That's it. Brooks.

Q: Yes, Brooks Tigner, Jane's. I want to come back to the bugaboo of the CFE. My question is only for our colleague with the epaulets on his shoulder. You and your colleagues are paid to do military analysis. You are paid to do military doctrine. You are paid to look at things military. The CFE is primarily a military instrument before political. Why can you not comment on what the implications would be if Russia didn't sign it?

BOUDREAU: Because I speak for the Military Committee and from the perspective of the Military Committee the fact is that the CFE Treaty remains a cornerstone of European security.

Q: (Inaudible)...

BOUDREAU: It's... it is something that... it is a treaty that the Chiefs of Defence continue to invest and pay attention to and...

Q: (Inaudible)...

BOUDREAU: And I anticipate that's going to be discussed later on today. But...

Q: (Inaudible)...

BOUDREAU: In terms of the actual military implications or applications you're asking me to speculate on what Russia could or would do with its forces and I'm not prepared to do that.

Nor would the... nor would, I suspect, nor the chairman or any of the Chiefs of Defence offer a view on what Russian intentions would be in that regard.

Q: So you're all just waiting for Russia to move a thousand tanks to the Polish border.

BOUDREAU: Well if you presume... if that's your presumption or... I mean, that's not necessarily a view shared by the military chiefs.

APPATHURAI: Let's go up here. (Inaudible)... We'll start with Paul.

Q: James, I'm trying to remember the exact figures, but just before Noordwijk you sat here and told us, I think, that you had 20 OMLTs and you wanted 40, something around there. We've gone through Noordwijk and a force generation conference. Where do we stand now in terms of the numbers, numbers of OMLTs that you have and numbers of OMLTs that you would like?

And going back to... you mentioned there are 14 countries in Regional Command South and it's going up to 18. Could you tell us how many of those countries have got more than, let's say, a 100 people in that part of the country?

APPATHURAI: To answer the second question, not right now I couldn't. But I could go and look at it.  

We have the "placemat" on the website and it's relatively easy to go and have a look. And when I say up to 18 please stress the point... the word I said, could potentially go up. It does not necessarily mean it will go up. I want to be very clear about that.

The first... oh OMLTs. The current requirement is for 46, but that number will climb. I think with the contributions that we heard now, and now I'm taking a ballpark shot at it, but I think we are now into the low to mid-thirties of OMLTs. Once—let me be clear—once all of these OMLTs are provided then we will be in the low to mid-thirties.

But... so (a), that will bring us closer to the target that we have now, but not fully there. And (b), that target will move. As more Afghan battalions come off the assembly line we will have a greater, ever greater requirement for Operational Mentor and Liaison Teams. So we're closer to the target we have now, but we're not there yet, and that target will keep moving. 

Please.

Q: This question is for Colonel Boudreau. On Kosovo, please, could you give me a sense of the contingency planning there for the next month or so? Has there been a lot? Is it completed actually?

BOUDREAU: NATO military forces number about 16,000-plus in Kosovo. It has been at that level for a number of months. Certainly there's no intent to increase or reduce that figure. The KFOR forces continue to do what they've always done there, and that is to say patrol and provide a force for stability and assistance in that regard. Obviously we follow the activities of the troika and statements of... and actions of others in the area, and within that region very carefully and KFOR stands ready to do what it needs to do to continue to provide that element of security, regardless of the outcome in December or beyond.

APPATHURAI: The next row and then I'll come right back to you.

Q: This is for James. What can you tell us about this "action for action" plan on CFE treaty? Is this a US proposal or is this a NATO proposal? And what are those actions that NATO is supposed to take and what other actions that Russians are supposed to take?

Thank you.

APPATHURAI: Thank you. I'm not really in a position to speak too much to this because it is a US-Russian discussion, US proposal. I don't want to speak to the details so I'd like you to please address this question to the United States, because it's simply not for me to speak to it.

I would make the point though that NATO as NATO is not a signatory to the CFE. NATO coordinates... NATO countries coordinate their position, but NATO and Russia do not negotiate the CFE Treaty.

The United States, of course, has its bilateral discussion and in Vienna... generally in Vienna, the full group of states party to the treaty negotiate with, of course, the NATO countries, speaking as a group. But just to understand the procedure, it would not be NATO and Russia anyway, but in this case action for action is a US proposal and I would ask you to address that to the United States.

You're next.

Q:  Yes, just back to the Dutch contingent in Afghanistan. Since you named the three countries could you give us some more specifics about what the French, Czechs and Slovaks offered? Did the French offer go beyond the trainers that were already brought up in Noordwijk and how close are we now to meeting everything that was on the Dutch shopping list, as it were?

APPATHURAI: I'm afraid I can't give you very good answers. A, I can't speak to the specifics of what they have offered. That is not within my remit. And second, it is for the Dutch to determine whether or not that... what is on the table now meets their requirements. So sorry to be so curt, but that's the truth.

Here, first. First here.

Q: Chris Dickson(?), Agence Europe. Two questions, the first one may be simpler on ISAF and Afghanistan. As Dan McNeill a few weeks back was talking about a winter layoff and over the... I'm looking at the incident on Monday and a couple of last week where actual ISAF troops have unfortunately been killed. What's the military significance of this, bearing in mind that this is the period where we would normally expect an easing off of that kind of activity?

My other question is on CFE. I don't quite understand and I'd appreciate some clarification on it. You mentioned that NATO countries are abiding by the amended treaty. The objection from the Russian side seems to be well, abiding by isn't the same as ratifying. We want to see this ratified before it goes forward. The reply seems to be, well, there are some issues outstanding from the Istanbul commitments, to which the Russians seem to reply that's... you can't make that link, they're two separate things.

So is it more of a deadlock, or have I misunderstood, and if I haven’t misunderstood why is the non-ratification in the NATO countries okay if they're going to abide by it, when the Russians say okay we're going to impose a moratorium, we're still going to abide by it, we're not going to move our troops around. It seems quite parallel.

APPATHURAI: To answer the question about the winter lull, I don't want to speak for COMISAF. I would say two things. First, it's not winter yet in Afghanistan. It's 20 degrees in Kandahar today. That's Celsius. So it's not winter yet.

Second point is, the Taleban is engaged now, to my mind, in what we would call information operations activities in a very clear way, taking, as the press reported, district centres, two or three district centres. And I put these words in quotes, because I have just seen today what a district centre represents, which is two small buildings in the middle of not much else in an area that is largely unprotected by Afghan National Security Forces.

And the moment that any serious numbers of either Afghan or foreign forces arrive they leave. So they come in, they burn the place, and three hours later they go. And this is portrayed in the press as taking a district. They're also engaged, of course, in a number of IED attacks and others, for reasons that don't relate to holding territory, but do relate to information operations.

And those information operations have been unfortunately successful, but I don't think we should exaggerate their importance to the strategic balance on the ground.

In terms of the CFE Treaty, again, I'm not the Russian Federation spokesman. One Russian concern is that the countries that were not signatory to the original CFE Treaty, Baltic states for example, until the adapted CFE Treaty is ratified they are not able to enter into it.

And so that is of concern to them. A concern, of course, which the Baltic states have responded to by saying that they abide by the adapted CFE Treaty and will enter into it once they can. It can only be entered into by them once it is ratified. So here's where we get into the series of steps. NATO's position is very clear. The Istanbul commitments are both political and legal and therefore need to be met before the treaty can be ratified. That has been the position, until now. The Russian Federation obviously does not see that linkage, which you quite correctly pointed out.

So how do we go forward? There are a number of discussions going on. There are the bilateral US-Russian discussions. You have heard them. Action for action. These ideas have the support of the NATO Allies. They are being discussed in the larger group in Vienna. And I think they offer at least an encouraging way forward for discussion.

And as I say, Allies look at them with a favourable eye, so they... they can offer the hope of breaking the deadlock that you mentioned. And moving us forward in a step-by-step way to allow for ratification of the CFE Treaty.

What is unfortunate about all of the press discussion about this and the... let's say megaphone diplomacy over CFE, is that everybody agrees the Russian Federation and all of the NATO countries, agree on the outcome. Everybody agrees on what they want. They want the CFE, the adapted CFE Treaty to be ratified. And I think that actually in the end is a sign of encouragement. Nobody wants to back away from it.

Q: (Inaudible)...some elements of the Istanbul commitments, those don't have the same universal approval that you mentioned, and they seem to have been made a precondition to a treaty which is essentially separate.

APPATHURAI: Well, they are not essentially separate in the eyes of the NATO Allies. It is all part of the same package, all negotiated at the same time. And so from the NATO point of view, the NATO Allies' point of view, these are, as I say, legally and politically part of the requirements for the adaptation of the CFE Treaty.

I know the Russian Federation doesn't see that linkage quite as strongly and that's where there has been such disagreement, but we have seen one very good step yesterday and that was that the Russian commander in the Caucasus signed over the Batumi base in Georgia to the Georgians and that was a very important one of the Istanbul commitments.

So there is progress and I have to say the Russian Federation has moved recently very quickly on that particular issue to bring it to closure and it's something that Allies support very strongly. It is not hard to meet the Istanbul commitments. They can be done. Batumi is an example that it can be done.

So I think we have the foundations because we agree on the end state, and because we have seen progress coming to them, to move to a stage where the adapted CFE Treaty will be ratified by an all-states party and by the parties like the Baltic states that were not part of the original treaty.

Q: Was there any mention of Bosnia in this Military Committee, because of course Bosnia is now under the responsibility of Europe as a defence organization, but at least 21 countries out of 26 in NATO are members of EU as well and there is still military presence of NATO, as you know. And as well, talking about CFE in relation to Istanbul commitments, there was a link on these frozen conflicts. Is Bosnia considered as one of those conflicts that could be defrost suddenly, and in that case, what are your contingency plans because of course they're coming to many agreements that are very obscure, but clear in your mind, NATO is supposed to provide equipment and so on to assist EU in case of emergency.

BOUDREAU: NATO Military Headquarters are established in four of the Balkan capitals; Belgrade, Tirana, Skopje and Sarajevo and we maintain small contingents there to help with the processes of liaison with NATO, first of all, for our partner nations and also assist with the defence reform initiatives. And the cooperation activities that we have under way.

So in that sense the Balkan region is always a part of the discussions when the military chiefs gather to meet. The discussion about Kosovo specifically was, if you will, related to the Kosovo area proper. Marginal or peripheral discussions about applications or implications for the region, but Bosnia itself was not... I wouldn't say wouldn't... did not feature prominently in the discussions, although it was certainly a matter of general observation when looking at Kosovo in that context.

APPATHURAI: That'll be the last question.

Q: (Inaudible)... Agency. Can you give us more details on the briefing of Turkish Chief of General Staff? What kind of issues did he raise during the meeting?

BOUDREAU: I just observed that the Turkish Chief of Defence provided  a good overview to the other Chiefs of Defence about the current situation that Turkey faced in their struggle against PKK terrorist group and Chiefs of Defence offered their support to Turkey, as we do for all terrorist groups and activities. But really it was limited to, if you will, an intervention by the Turkish chief to provide an overview of the current situation...