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Welcome back. Before we turn to the next item on our agenda, operations and other crisis management issues, we will first witness a signing ceremony for those nations participating in the multinational capability projects on strategic airlift and strategic sealift.
I am very pleased that we are able to use today’s meeting to facilitate Ministers’ signing two letters of intent in these critical capability areas.
As the Alliance prepares to assume command of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, we appreciate all too well the vital importance of strategic airlift. If we cannot transport significant forces over long distances to often remote locations, we will be unable to meet our commitments.
NATO’s military leaders have identified a shortfall of 19 European strategic lift aircraft, and in my minimum package I challenged nations to reduce this shortfall by 50% by 2004. Eleven nations signed a Statement of Intent at Prague at the Summit to address this issue and this shortfall multilaterally. Since Prague, these nations have been working hard on the details of their plans and today Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxemburg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Turkey will sign a Letter of Intent which will bring us closer to reducing the gap in strategic airlift for outsized cargo.
Let me congratulate Germany on the strong leadership in this effort and ask the German Minister of Defence, Peter Struck, to introduce the signing for strategic airlift.