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Q: Welcome General Kujat. You are the Chairman of NATO's Military Committee and in that capacity advise the North Atlantic Council on military issues including operations. NATO is engaged in a number of crisis management operations at the moment in the Balkans, in Afghanistan and in Iraq. I would like to ask you a number of questions on the evolution of these operations and NATO's military capacity to undertake them.
First of all, Afghanistan; this month, Afghanistan experienced the first democratic elections in its history. Voters went to the ballot boxes to elect a President and will be asked to participate in parliamentary elections this next spring. Were these elections a logistical challenge for NATO Forces on the ground?
GEN HARALD KUJAT (Chairman of the NATO Military Committee): Yes indeed. But let me first say that the elections have been a great success. This is the first time that the Afghan people had an opportunity to vote and the outcome was, for me personally, a great surprise, a positive surprise I should say.
Yes it was a challenge for us so we had to move in some reserve forces, some more equipment in order to support the election process but more of course I'm delighted that nothing really serious happened.
Q: More soldiers were sent to Afghanistan on this occasion, now that the elections are over, will these additional troops be sent home?
Q: Yes they will be sent home and, but at the same time we are already in the process of planning for the parliamentary elections which will take place in spring. So we will be there with... some of them will be back, others will come to support this process as well and this may be even a greater challenge than the presidential elections.
Q: Were special measures foreseen for the upcoming spring parliamentary elections?
Q: Well what we do is, of course as I said, we will move in more reserve forces in order to cope with unforeseeable situations. I hope that at the same time we have already expanded our presence into the western area, into the Herat area at least, this would help us a lot and would of course support the election even better.
Q: And speaking about Iraq, in Iraq, NATO has already set up training missions and decided to expand its assistance to the country. What does these operation plans foresee?
Q: Well what we are going to do there is we will train Iraqi soldiers and specifically Iraqi military leaders. We will help establish a security force in Iraq so that once there are elections, parliamentary elections hopefully early next year, then we have forces for a new government which will put this government in a situation to cope with these difficulties with security problems.
So we will assist the Iraqi interim government in this specific training mission. But they will be... we also do some equipment... provide some equipment to the Iraqi security forces so this is of course done by nations not by NATO because NATO doesn't own equipment but we will play a role there in balancing so to say the requirements with the equipment that is available.
Q: Are there other initiatives being considered?
Q: As far as Iraq is concerned do you mean or in general?
Q: As far as Iraq.
Q: As far as Iraq is concerned we have chosen a step-by-step approach. So we will start with a very modest way, let me put it this way, but we are of course prepared to expand our training mission. So this is a training mission that will take place inside Iraq as well as outside of Iraq.
So it's a measured approach, step-by-step, as I said, depending on the situation on the ground; depending on the needs of the Iraqi government and of course in line with what NATO nations can provide.
Q: At the end of the year, NATO will be handing over its missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina to the European Union. Could you talk us through the practical aspects of this handover and explain whether NATO will still have a presence on the ground?
Q: NATO will be present in Bosnia, we will not be present vis-à-vis a major force there but there are some tasks that we will continue to do on our own and of course on the other hand we will support the European Union.
But let me use that opportunity to explain how much this is a success, we have moved in there with more than 60,000 forces and we have now reduced our presence to about 7,000, which in itself is an indication of the great success of this operation.
Yes we will... we will still have some kind of a NATO presence there and a NATO headquarter--not a big one--but a headquarter that allows us specifically to go after war criminals, that is something that we will do, and some other tasks.
And we have on a very cooperative... in a very cooperative spirit we have delineated the tasks that will be still done by NATO and of course the major mission that will then continue under European strategic and political responsibility.
Q: NATO is fully engaged in the province of Kosovo; do you think that NATO troops will be needed there for a lot longer and do you foresee a handover to the European Union in the near to mid-future?
Q: Well I think what is important is that we can provide a political future to the people in Kosovo. This is very important; they need to see a light at the end of the tunnel. That is something that will be certainly(?) on our agenda sometime mid-next year.
Now there is always this question of status versus standards. Of course, the Kosovo people have to comply with democratic standards. We need to see some improvement in the country but at the same time I think the political decision will go on as far as the status is concerned as well.
From my perspective I think we need an overall strategy for the Balkans. That is very, very important because all of these problems are interrelated of course. So I see, yes I see a NATO presence there for some time, I don't know whether the European Union at some point in time they'll want to take over, that is not an issue. For now, it's not on the agenda.
So I see a considerable presence of NATO Forces in Kosovo at least for the foreseeable future.
Q: Final question. In order to take on all of these operations successfully and accept responsibility for future operations, NATO needs the right military capabilities. Is this the case today and if not, is there still a great deal of work to do in this area?
Q: Well let me talk about the right capabilities. We talk about the Forces of our NATO member countries. There are no Forces that are owned by NATO so what we need to do is we need to transform these national forces in a very coherent way.
They need to be in a position to operate together, to fight together in crisis response operations and other operations as well. That is very important. And I think we have done quite a lot, there is some progress definitely. But there... we need to do much more but what we have done is more on the conception side.
We've established a strategic headquarters for a transformation, we have developed concepts, we have established the... at least... there's an initial operational capability--the NATO Response Force. We have a NATO Joint Warfare Centre in Stavanger; we have a Joint NATO Training Centre in Poland; so, this is the groundwork so to say has been done.
The infrastructure, let me put it this way, and the concepts. So what we need to do now is we need to implement that and that is of course very challenging and because it costs money, no question about that, and at the same time we have more operations ongoing so there is... nations have to strike a delicate balance.
On one hand they have to provide money for the ongoing operations, on the other hand they need of course money to do this transformation process. I think we have to be a little bit patient but altogether I'm satisfied with the progress we have achieved so far and, of course, we are pushing here from the NATO side, we are pushing nations and we are pushing ourselves, let me put it this way, to do more in the future and that is absolutely necessary.
Q: Thank you very much.