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| Last update: 14-Oct-2004 18:10 | NATO Update |
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Defence Ministers take
forward
Improving the Alliance’s capability to engage in operations and the future of
its current missions was the focus of informal talks of NATO Defence
Ministers in Poiana Brasov, Romania, on 13 October.
Informal meetings traditionally have no fixed agenda and no formal decisions are taken; they allow Ministers to discuss freely issues on NATO’s agenda. Linking policy to capabilities A key theme of this meeting was improving the link between NATO’s political decision to take on missions and ensuring the availability of the forces to carry them out. Ministers talked about how to meet deployability targets, adopted at the recent Istanbul Summit. These state that the forces of NATO countries should be forty percent deployable and eight percent sustainable in the field at any time. They also discussed ideas for improving the financing and planning of operations, as well as the political decision-making process. “I think we made a lot of progress in shaping the future direction of NATO's transformation and in guiding the next steps in our operations,” NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters after the meeting. Delivering on commitments
Ministers also discussed the future of NATO’s current engagements in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Iraq. They reviewed the state of preparations for the expansion of the NATO-led ISAF force to the West of the country and discussed the future of the relationship between ISAF and the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom. The next steps forward for NATO in Iraq were also discussed, as the Alliance prepares to expand its training assistance to the country. “Let me stress the point that the Iraqis themselves consider
training inside Iraq of the utmost importance. And
there should be no doubt,
in other words, that NATO is committed to expanding
the training mission
as quickly as possible,” Mr. De Hoop Scheffer said.
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