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Hello and welcome to the second in my series of monthly briefings on NATO and where the Alliance is headed in the coming weeks.
Now, this setting may seem to you a little bit bleak, a little bit quiet. It is, however, just brand spanking new. This is the large conference room for the Bulgarian mission in the very new wing that we have just opened on the 17th of this month for the seven new members of NATO.
This is a very important development for us. It is leading up to two very, very important developments, and those are the ceremony in the United States and then a ceremony here marking the formal accession of seven new members to the Alliance, bringing us to a total of 26.
On the 29th of this month a formal ceremony will be held in Washington at the White House where the seven members of the Alliance will formally deposit their instruments of accession and become fully, formally and legally members of NATO. They have been, of course, up until now, over the past weeks and months been participating almost fully in almost every NATO forum and in every NATO activity. But on that date, and at that ceremony, with the deposit of their instruments of ratification they will become full and formal members.
This will be a ceremony hosted by President George Bush because the United States is the depository state of the Washington Treaty. It will be attended by the Heads of State and Government of the seven acceding members, and the Secretary General of NATO will, of course, be there as well. This is a very, very important date in NATO's long history and certainly one which we welcome.
In a few days after that, on the 2nd of April, we here at NATO Headquarters will formally welcome these members into our Alliance. This will be a very emotional moment for us. We will formally raise the seven flags, the seven new flags to fly alongside those of the 19 current NATO members, and alongside, of course, the NATO flag. So those of you who are in Brussels, or visiting Brussels, can drive in front of NATO headquarters, and you will be able to see from there the Cour d'Honneur and the 26, 27 flags of NATO nations flying there.
As soon as that ceremony is over we will hold a first formal North Atlantic Council meeting with the members of NATO sitting in full alphabetic order. Until now, as I've mentioned, the seven new members had been participating in North Atlantic Council meetings, but they had not taken their seat in alphabetic order. That will then happen.
After the accession ceremony has taken place, we will then hold a meeting of foreign ministers. NATO has regular meetings of foreign ministers, some formal where formal decisions are taken, some informal where simple profound discussions take place and the agenda is moved forward. This will be an informal meeting of foreign ministers, where there will not be, as I say, formal decisions taken. This will be the first in which the seven new members discuss very, very important issues as full members.
Two issues which they will discuss are issues that are very much in the press today and are preoccupying much of what we do in NATO. One is Kosovo. Anyone who has followed the press over the past few weeks, certainly the past few days, has witnessed the terrible explosion of violence that took place in Kosovo and which spread, to a certain extent, into Serbia as well.
The Alliance responded very quickly by putting in place, or by activating its contingency plans to respond to any spike in violence. As a result, over two and a half thousand troops flowed into Kosovo in the space of days and helped to re-impose order, re-impose peace and security.
The Secretary General made frequent phone calls to all leaders of the region, particularly in Kosovo and in Serbia, to call upon all leaders to restrain themselves in their action, in their words, and to restrain their constituencies. He then made a personal visit to Kosovo, to make this point very clearly, and to make the point clearly to the ethnic Albanian community of Kosovo, that they bear a heavy responsibility to bring this violence to an end, to rebuild the damage that was done to, in particular, to Serb homes, to Serb churches and to re-create or to create, where possible, an environment where the Serb minority can feel safe, can feel welcome, can feel fully part of the political process.
Prime Minister of Serbia Kostunica is here and will meet with the Secretary General and he will convey... the Secretary General will convey his message to the Prime Minister that he has worked actively and NATO has worked actively to protect the minorities in Kosovo and will continue to do that.
He will also discuss with the Serbian Prime Minister what it will take for Serbia to move closer to NATO in particular, to become a member of Partnership for Peace.
Another issue that will be on the agenda very much for foreign ministers when they meet on the 2nd of April will be Afghanistan. Afghanistan remains NATO's priority number one, and we have seen significant progress over the past few weeks, and will see more progress as time goes on, to help bring peace and security to Afghanistan.
One of the most important dates on our calendar was the Force Generation Conference held by SHAPE, where nations came to fill their statement of requirements, to help the Alliance create or take control of Provincial Reconstruction Teams in the north of Afghanistan, as part of an overall plan to spread peace and security beyond the capital, first in the north, then in the west, then into the south and into the east in the future.
At this Force Generation Conference, which we considered to be very successful, many nations came forward and made significant, substantial contributions, and as a result of that we feel, the Alliance feels, that it can go forward, and as we look forward to the Istanbul Summit we will be able to roll out these provincial reconstruction teams and put more, up to five, under NATO command.
There have been also significant successes for the International Security Assistance Force, under NATO's command, in Kabul. And one of those has been the cantonment of heavy weapons in Kabul. This is a very important part of the overall peace process in the country, and NATO has put these weapons under lock and key, a dual lock and key. And these heavy weapons in Kabul will not be able to be taken out unless NATO agrees that it too will turn the key.
These are the major elements on the agenda of that meeting. There will also be a meeting between NATO's Foreign Ministers and the Foreign Minister of Russia, Mr. Lavrov, the NRC in Foreign Ministerial meeting, NATO-Russia Council. This will be the first held with Mr. Lavrov as he has just been appointed and NATO Foreign Ministers, while they, I'm sure, know him from his experience as a UN Ambassador are certainly looking forward to welcoming him to the NRC as Foreign Minister of Russia and to discussing many of the important issues on our agenda. And that, of course, will include the difficulties that we have seen over the past few days in Kosovo.
For the rest of the month there are only two other major events that I would note right now. One is a seminar taking place in Norfolk, Virginia at Allied Command Transformation. Allied Command Transformation is NATO's command which will push the modernization of NATO's forces, NATO's doctrine, NATO's capabilities as part of NATO's new reformed command structure.
Allied Command Transformation will be holding this seminar in early April to show, to demonstrate, to allies the various elements of transformation that are being implemented, that could be or should be implemented, and to exercise them in front of allies to demonstrate what is possible and what is being done.
Just after that we will hold, with Russia, a NATO-Russia Council Joint Seminar on Terrorism, to discuss one of the major threats that we face today, one of the major areas in which NATO and Russia are co-operating, and finally, one of the major areas in which NATO and Russia are taking forward what is a fundamental relationship, and that is the relationship between Russia and NATO and the efforts that we are making to address joint challenges together.
That is it for this month's video assessment of the coming month's challenges. I look forward to seeing you in four weeks. Thank you.