27 Aug 2003

Autumn events and activities Links NATO in Afghanistan Informal Meeting of Defence Ministers Colorado Springs, 8-9 October 2003 Exercise Northern Light Scientific Affairs With the take-over of ISAF IV on 11 August, NATO has had a busy summer and a busy Autumn lies ahead with a number of key markers planned in the coming weeks. Among the many official visits Lord Robertson will be paying before his departure as Secretary General at the end of the year, he will be going to Kabul to visit NATO troops fulfilling their first peace-keeping operation outside the Euro-Atlantic area. A NATO conference will also be held at the headquarters on Afghanistan in September. The informal meeting of NATO Defence Ministers will be held this year at Colorado Springs, 8-9 October. The Defence Ministers from the seven partner countries expected to become members in May 2004 are also invited to participate in the proceedings. A major live civil emergency planning exercise, DACIA 2003, will be held in Romania this October and standard military exercises will continue to take place with Exercise Northern Light, 15-26 September and Exercise NATO Air Meet 8-12 and 15-18 September. Among the many conferences, workshops and seminars organised by different divisions at NATO are a Youth conference, 15-16 September, one on the Mediterranean region, 4-8 September, to be followed by another on "The complementarity between NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue and the EU's Barcelona process" in November and a major conference on "NATO's role in crisis management and conflict resolution, 16 October. These are just a selection of the many events and activities planned up to Christmas. The NATO Science Partnership Prize will be awarded on 22 October, the NATO-Russia Council will resume its regular meetings after the summer break, as will the several hundred committees that deal with NATO's day-to-day business.