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JAAP DE HOOP SCHEFFER (NATO Secretary-General): Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's a great pleasure for me to receive at NATO, to warmly welcome at NATO the Czech Prime Minister Fischer. Thank you, Prime Minister, for finding the time in what must be an extremely hectic schedule, given your European Union presidency, to come and visit NATO. It gave me the opportunity, ladies and gentlemen, to commend the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister with the Czech contributions in NATO's operations and missions, be it in Afghanistan, be it in Kosovo. They came to bring me the good news that the Czech Republic under their leadership will keep this position, will keep it up as far as the support for the operations and missions are concerned. We spent some time, of course, given the fact that the Defence Minister is present in our midst, that we spent some time in preparing the Defence Ministerial meeting this coming Thursday and Friday here in Brussels. We discussed the state of the Alliance in the framework of the important exercise we are on the brink of starting, that is NATO's New Strategic Concept, where I'm quite sure that the Czech Republic will play an active part, but we focused mainly on the operations and missions. Prime Minister once again it is a pleasure to welcome you here. Defence Minister Barták, good to see you here again. Prime Minister, please take the floor.
JAN FISCHER: (Prime Minister of Czech Republic): Thanks for the floor, Secretary General. It's my fourth visit to NATO Headquarters. I'm very pleased to be here. I would like to confirm the words of the Secretary General that we had a very good and efficient meeting. We were very to the point. We were talking about the Czech approach as to the missions, and I assured our colleagues here, sitting here at NATO Headquarters that the Czech Republic is ready to fulfil all the commitments which we have to NATO. I stressed the continuation of the foreign policy of the Czech Republic, including the involvement in NATO… NATO structure. We were talking about the relations between NATO and European Union, and we agreed on the fact that these kind of relationships have to be improved, and they have to be in the focus on both sides, NATO as well as European Union. So once more I would like to, we were talking about missile defence and other topics of the defence and foreign policy. That's one fact which I would like to stress. You perfectly know that we live in the environment, and circumstances of the very heavy global economic complications caused by a global economic and financial crisis, and in spite of the fact the Czech Republic is doing its best to keep on mind that the expenditures devoted to the defence are very important, and in spite of the fact that defence expenditures' not in competition with the expenditures devoted to health care, education. We have on mind our alliance commitments, to NATO and be sure that we keep our commitments. So that's all for my side. Thanks for your attention.
Q: Czech News Agency. I have two questions if I may for Secretary General concerning missions. There are some media news saying that NATO plans to scale down a mission to Kosovo. Would you have any comment on that? And for Prime Minister Fischer, you mentioned missile defence. Could you describe your position of the Czech government in this especially as regards the ratification of the treaties with the United States? Thank you.
JAN FISCHER: Thank you. We are waiting for the clarification of the position of the new US administration. The process in the Czech Republic is now not halted, not stopped by… a little bit discontinued, it's not in position of the newly-born cabinet, which I am at a head of, but it will be, it will be gone after elections which will be held in mid-October in the Czech Republic, and then the politically composed government will decide how to go on, but there's a two sides process. Domestic as concerns the Czech Republic, and the second it's the position of the new US administration and their approach to this point or this issue.
JAAP DE HOOP SCHEFFER: On KFOR, let us please discuss things in the right order. Coming Thursday and Friday the Defence Ministers of NATO will come to NATO Headquarters here to discuss a number of issues, among which is the future of KFOR. But no decision has been made, so any speculation about decision making is premature at the moment. The future of KFOR will be discussed, I can confirm, but no decisions have been taken. And if decisions are going to be taken, that can only be the results of a very thorough military and political analysis. This is not just a military decision, a military and political analysis of the situation, and if that situation politically and militarily, I say it in that order, and not the other way around, justifies decisions on the future of KFOR. But as we speak on Monday afternoon, it is definitely premature to start speculating and I'll not participate in those kind of speculations.
JAMES APPATHURAI: Next question is…
Q: Czech Radio question for General Secretary. How far is the process of normalization of the relationships between NATO and Russia nowadays?
JAAP DE HOOP SCHEFFER: I think we're on track. No need to say that I consider this partnership as a very important one. NATO cannot do without Russia, and Russia cannot do without NATO. And I'm glad to say that, as you probably know, that later this month, at the end of this month at Corfu there will be a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council at the political level, at Foreign Ministers' level in the presence of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and the NATO Ministers, I'll chair that meeting. That is hopefully the start of, the restart I should say of the NATO-Russia Council at the political level, as was discussed at Strasbourg and Kehl during the NATO summit. We should realize that the NATO-Russia council is not a fair-weather organization or a fair-weather body. We have lots of issues where we disagree with Russia. We have lots of issues where we can very constructively cooperate. Let me mention Afghanistan, non-proliferation, counter-narcotics. So we should do both: discuss where we have differences of opinion and work constructively together on an important issue like Afghanistan, but at the end of June the NATO-Russia Council will meet at the political level. And I'm happy about that.
JAMES APPATHURAI: That's all we have time for.