Press briefing

JAMES APPATHURAI (NATO Spokesman):  Colleagues, thank you. Sorry for the delay and I'll try to keep it relatively brief, as usual. Let me take the opportunity to first update you on the Secretary General's trip to Pakistan where, from which he and we have just returned yesterday evening

He met with President Musharraf, with Prime Minister Aziz and with the Foreign Minister Mr. Kasuri. They discussed putting in place a stronger political relationship between NATO and Pakistan, and that will include, after the discussions they have had now, a regular political exchange at high level. That is something that we have not had until now and that will be a deliverable from our meetings. They discussed, of course, the broad range of cooperation between Pakistan and NATO and how that can be developed including, for example, NATO opening its schools to Pakistani military officers, and how we can deepen our cooperation, including with Afghanistan when it comes to security in Afghanistan.

The Secretary General stressed, and certainly that there was agreement from all three of his interlocutors in Pakistan, that insecurity, instability, extremism and terrorism in Afghanistan will have effects not only in Afghanistan, but also in Pakistan and that we all share—NATO, Afghanistan and Pakistan—a common goal to fight extremism and terrorism in Pakistan.

They discussed, of course, specifically, how to stem cross-border support for extremists in Afghanistan. President Musharraf and the Foreign Minister both made calls, and you heard those calls in public, for more effort to be made on the other side of the border.

The Secretary General believes, and said publicly, that all parties, and that means NATO, the Afghans and the Pakistanis need to do more. And NATO is looking to do more. Certainly so are NATO countries, for example, the Canadians are working on an initiative to improve border security for that area and NATO is looking at ways in which we can do more as well.

We do have, in the Tripartite Commission, which brings together the three parties, joint border control efforts, as well as intelligence sharing in an intelligence cell that has been created in Kabul.

Finally, in terms of areas of NATO-Pakistan cooperation there is work still ongoing to finalize a lines of communication agreement, which will allow for the transit of personnel and equipment through Pakistan to support the mission in Afghanistan in a structured and formalized way that will take into account all the legal arrangement and financial arrangements that are necessary.

In short, it had a very positive spirit. We had some substantial deliverables, certainly in terms of putting in place a regular high level political exchange between NATO and Pakistan and I think certainly the Secretary General was very pleased with the results.

Next, let me turn to the Chiefs of Defence meeting that is taking place today and tomorrow. This is the first of their three annual meetings. The next one will be in September in Canada and after that in November in Brussels.

Today is just for the NATO Chiefs of Defence. Tomorrow as many as 30 partner Chiefs of Defence will join them in four different meeting formats: Euro Atlantic Partnership Council, Mediterranean Dialogue, Ukraine and Russia. I know that's the one that will get your pens moving.

There is a media advisory to that effect and an overview of the main agenda points are on the NATO website if you want to look. I can tell you that the meetings this morning focused on operations, obviously in particular on the NATO ISAF mission in Afghanistan and of course, the NATO mission in Kosovo. They will look now and through the rest of the day on the transformation of NATO's military capabilities, including the long-term sustainability of the NRF, military budget issues and Headquarters reforms. There'll be  a proper briefing later on by Colonel Brett Boudreau on the results of this afternoon's discussion.

Tomorrow, as I mentioned, the day will be reserved for partners. The MC will be briefed by two aspirant nations--Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Serbia, which is a new member of the EAPC. They will discuss operational issues with the Mediterranean Dialogue members. They will review progress on the 2007 NATO-Ukraine work plan.

And the last session of the day is the NATO-Russia Council meeting with the NATO and Russian Chiefs of Defence. The agenda for this meeting has been agreed weeks in advance. It will, of course, cover operational issues and assessment of military to military cooperation.

I would not be surprised if the issues of missile defence and the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty were to be raised and discussed. Certainly General Baluyevsky has made it clear he intends to put this onto the agenda and all Chiefs of Defence are free to table whatever they would like and certainly we are all looking forward to that discussion.

Third point, today the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia visited NATO, met with the North Atlantic Council, to discuss their preparations for a possible invitation at the upcoming NATO Summit in Bucharest next spring, to join NATO.

In essence, the Ministers updated the NATO ambassadors and the Secretary General on the progress that they had made across a whole range of fronts in terms of defence, economic, political and other administrative reforms. Those were welcomed by the ambassadors and by the Secretary General .

I would say that there are three points on which the ambassadors and the Secretary General agreed the country needed to focus its efforts. One was continuing to make improvements to the internal political dialogue between government and opposition. There has been progress recently and that was certainly welcomed, but it is still difficult, and the state and health of the political process in the country is certainly something at which NATO nations will be looking carefully.

Second, there were a range of reforms in areas like judicial reform, the fight against corruption, the fight against trafficking, which NATO nations highlighted as areas in which further progress will be needed.

And third, they stressed the importance of putting in place reforms that area sustainable and systemic. In other words, not ad hoc, but that are based on systems and structures that will allow for transformation to continue beyond the end of the next map cycle. And that was certainly a conclusion of the meeting. We have, as you know, annual Membership Action Plans, cycles to guide and assist in reform. Normally these would have come... well they did... the latest cycle came to an end. Now the ambassadors agreed that, of course, reform needs to continue so they have agreed with the government that a MAP cycle, a new MAP cycle will begin.

Finally, let me mention the recent, and that as close as yesterday's election in Serbia of Mr. Nikolic as speaker, certainly, NATO, like the European Union, is concerned. At this election NATO would wish to see as soon as possible a government formed in Serbia that will continue Serbia's path to Euro Atlantic integration.

That is all I think I want to brief you on now, but I'm happy to take your questions on...

Oh yes, sorry, sorry. Robert's right. Two... I'm glad you came along. Two exercises that I wish to mention and we have information for you here if you want to pick it up on the way out.

There will be a relatively large live NRF exercise from the 14th to the 25th of May. It will be hosted by Germany, Poland, Demark, and Sweden, NATO partner. It will take place... it will be a sea, land and air exercise in the North Sea, Kattegat, Danish Straits and the Southern Baltic Sea. It will involve a fictional scenario made up of three exercises and you can see... the media day will be on the 16th of May, but the information is all here and you can pick it up.

The other thing I wanted to mention, and again we have the information here, is that Croatia will host a civil emergency exercise, the fictional scenario comprising a devastating earthquake, further aggravated by chemical leaks in an industrial seaport and the threat of terrorists using biological agents onboard a passenger plane, just to make it a little bit complicated.

It'll be organized by the EADRCC. There'll be 1,000 participants from 35 countries, 40 national expert teams and 120 observers. It will take place from the 19th to the 24th of May in Zadar, Croatia. Again, all the information is here if you'd like it.

Questions? Pascal. I'll begin with the easiest question, I'm sure.

Q: It's not a question on Russia because I know my colleagues will have good questions. It's about this exercise in Croatia. You said that it is to complicate the exercise, that it has been a kind of flavour of terrorist added to this human relief exercise of NATO, that not all countries agree with in general and in principle. I mean, some countries, I repeat, are not enthusiastic about NATO being a kind of Red Cross with weapons. Maybe it was necessary to have this terrorist flavour just to justify to some bad member states that always deny, decry, protest and complaint about the civilian side of NATO.

APPATHURAI: I think there is no controversy in NATO about the Euro Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre, as we call it the EADRCC. It is well established within the NATO international structures. It has played a role I helping allies and partners contribute to real life disaster relief situations and I think there's been quite a few of them, the Pakistani earthquake being one of the most prominent, but also floods in Central Europe, also after Hurricane Katrina. So there is no controversy.

I think it is safe to say that anything that we look at in the modern environment can usefully include an element of the terrorist threat, if only because it is real, and second, because making these scenarios complicated and complex stretches and therefore improves the capabilities of those who are training to deal with them.

Q: Do you have some information about yesterday's incident in the Helmand province in Afghanistan and what impact would that have to the operations there.

APPATHURAI: This was a coalition-led operation, as you have seen from the press, so I am afraid that I am going to have to refer you to the coalition, to answer... or to speak to the details of what happened. I can say, of course, in the larger sense, that for the moment these are reports of civilian casualties, but even reports of civilian casualties are... while they're profoundly unfortunate, any civilian casualties that are confirmed are tragic and NATO as an organization, and ISAF as an operation make every effort to avoid them, in this particular case, as I said, this was a coalition-led operation and I would refer you to them for their comments.

I think we have Paul in the back.

Q: James, it's a follow-up to that last question in part. I know it's not confirmed yet but it's the latest in a series of such reports. Mostly it seems involving OEF. You've said ISAF is taking every care to avoid civilian casualties, is there any kind of concern that this build-up of reports is undermining the work that ISAF is doing and threatening the reconstruction role that ISAF originally had.

And secondly, could you just, beyond that, just elaborate a little bit more, give us a few more details about what the CHODs were discussing with regard to both Afghanistan and Kosovo this morning?

APPATHURAI: Absolutely. Of course, we would have to be concerned as an international community that the Afghans continue to support the presence of international forces as strongly as they currently do and the polls that I have seen, all the credible polls over the past five years, show a continued 80 percent-plus support by the Afghan people of the presence of international forces and that is absolutely essential.

So we need to do everything possible to minimize, and I say this as an international community, civilian casualties. We need to do everything possible to improve the coordination between international forces and between international forces and the Afghan security forces and the Afghan government, to ensure that that works as well as possible, information exchange, military coordination. All these efforts are under way. I can tell you they have only been strengthened because of the reports and activities that we have seen in the past few weeks.

But of course we are concerned. We would have to be concerned  to make every effort, A, to minimize civilian casualties, but B, to maintain the support of the Afghan people which we have, and which we absolutely need.

The CHODs have discussed precisely this and that is how to improve the coordination between all the forces on the ground, and that means ISAF, OEF... well, CJTF-82 as it is now called, and Afghan national security forces. That discussion is not just taking place here in Brussels. It is also taking place, I can tell you, in Kabul, quite intensively, including with the NATO Senior Civilian Representative Daan Everts and his counterparts, COMISAF and with the Afghan national authorities as well as with the coalition.

So that was the focus of the CHODs' discussion. On Kosovo you'll not be surprised that they are looking very closely at the political situation as it develops to ensure that  we as an Alliance have the necessary forces in place and at the appropriate state of readiness to deal with what is obviously a very volatile and fast-moving political situation. I can tell you they are comfortable with the force levels that they have. They are also comfortable with the readiness levels of those forces.

But they will continue to make, as necessary, adjustments. They have done that just in the past few days to make sure that they have what they need and in the right way.

Q: Yeah, Mark John from Reuters. You mentioned the concerns that this could have an impact on the way that ISAF carries out and success of ISAF operations. Has any Alliance official at any level, and perhaps this could have been Ambassador Everts (inaudible)... at the military level, have they actually addressed these concerns with the coalition, namely that, you know, coalition tactics could potentially be undermining ISAF.

APPATHURAI: I don't think we look at this, and I don't think we should look at this in terms of a coalition or ISAF issue. This is a question of international forces. We all have the same goal as an international community, and that is to help create the conditions for peace and security in Afghanistan.

ISAF and the coalition work closely together when necessary. We have, of course, a command structure in place to allow for deconfliction where appropriate, for mutual support where necessary. As you know NATO ISAF can come in support principally in extremist situations to the coalition. That has happened in the other direction as well. During Operation Medusa the coalition flew quite a few sorties in support of ISAF.

So it's not a question of one or the other. It's a question of doing what we can as a group of nations, as international forces in Afghanistan, and working closely with the Afghans, to ensure that we do the best that we can.

They are distinct missions. You've heard me say this before. They are distinct missions with distinct mandates and that will not change, but certainly we need to ensure that the synergy between them is as good as possible.

Q: Can I just follow-up? (inaudible)... there is no mechanism through which the Alliance could actually raise concerns with the coalition or there's no need to?

APPATHURAI: Well, I'm certainly not implying there's no mechanism. There is a constant discussion at any level between NATO, ISAF and the coalition that from the tactical to the operational level, from the commander level on down and of course, Ambassador Everts as well.

There is also, of course, constant community between UCOM an CENTCOM. Those are the two commands that command the two different operations. And the Secretary General is in constant contact at the highest political level with the U.S. administration, which, of course, has a lead role in the coalition.

So there should be no doubt that there is a mechanism, A, and B, constant communication to make sure we get it right.

Q: James, you say that everybody has agreed there be more coordination in the operations between ISAF and Enduring Freedom. Are operations like this one the result of lack of coordination, and if so, I mean, what's the process? I mean, that's wrong intelligence information, that there are Taliban there, and after it turns out to be there are civilians probably ISAF could have known it and told OAF? What do you mean by coordination?

APPATHURAI: From what I understand from this morning, and again, I don't want to become an operational briefer, because these events have happened very recently, we're only getting first reports, so I don't want to go too far down this road.

I do know that there was coordination between the two missions, the two operations in this particular event. I think we have to take into account, all of us, and that includes me, the profound complication of operations in Afghanistan where the Taliban does not wear uniforms, where they fight out of urban areas, where they fight out of houses, where they do use civilians as human shields, where they do run into civilian homes. All of this does happen. I am not making excuses for anything.

We need to have the best possible intelligence, the best possible coordination and the greatest possible effort and restraint when it comes to civilian casualties. That is acknowledged both by the coalition and both by ISAF. I can tell you, because I don't speak for the coalition, that ISAF does make all those efforts, and I'm not implying that the coalition doesn't, just that I don't speak for the coalition.

But I think we need to remember who it is that is opposing NATO's UN mandated mission, that is opposing the mission of international forces in Afghanistan and the tactics that they use. We should not forget this. And let me close by saying that the vast majority of civilian casualties in Afghanistan are caused by Taliban, suicide bombs and IEDs. Well over three-quarters of the civilian casualties are caused by these tactics.

I know, certainly last year, 90 percent of the victims of Taliban attacks were civilians. And let me conclude by pointing you to the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reports of the last month  both of which accuse the Taliban of war crimes and crimes against humanity precisely for deliberately targeting civilians and NATO certainly has not been, nor has the coalition been accused of that.

Q: James, returning to the Chiefs of Staff meeting today and tomorrow, what kind of discussion can we expect on the NATO-Russia Council, on the missile defence? You know the position of Mr.... General Baluyevsky, and is there some kind of consensus now between the NATO member states on this issue, on the issue of American defence, national defence, and the cooperation with Russia on theatre defence etc.

APPATHURAI: Thank you for that. Well, I certainly think we can expect an interesting discussion. General Baluyevsky has made many of his points of view clear in interviews leading up to tomorrow's discussion.

This is a meeting of Chiefs of Defence so I expect that we will have the kind of meeting that Chiefs of Defence and the kind of discussion that Chiefs of defence should have, and that is technical and military, and not political. But we will see how the discussion unfolds.

The NATO path on missile defence is quite clear. There is, A, consensus on creating a theatre missile defence capability and the test for that has been agreed, and I believe is now being, sorry, you just told me...

UNIDENTIFIED: It's September.

APPATHURAI: September. Will be put in place in September. There is cooperation with the Russian Federation on theatre missile defence. That cooperation has advanced and a (inaudible)... exercise is planned relatively soon precisely on theatre missile defence. NATO-Russia theatre missile defence is not moving as quickly as we would like, but it is there, and it works.

The third track, as you pointed to, is the discussions within NATO on the U.S. discussions with its allies, Poland and the Czech Republic, to create, put in place an interceptor silo, interceptors and a radar into Europe and to see the ways in which NATO's discussions on wider missile defence can complement that.

In all three of these areas there is no controversy within the Alliance. There is, of course, controversy over these... or at least one of these initiatives in Moscow, and that will be a good opportunity... tomorrow will be a good opportunity to hear the Russia views.

Q: Brooks Tigner, Defense News. Coming back to this Canadian initiative, I'd like to see more detail about that. We all know what the detail is, staunching the border.

APPATHURAI: Yeah.

Q: Cross border. So, could you give us some more information about what the timing of this will be and what the means are for implementing it? I've already written that I should go talk to SHAPE in Canada. You don't need to say that.

APPATHURAI: (Laughs). Well frankly, you can talk to me, but I'd have to get back to my office before you do it. There is a piece of paper which I asked to be sent, and haven't quite got it yet.

In essence, I know that the Canadians have proposed helping the Afghans set up a graining centre, which would provide training in border control. But the exact modalities of that I do not know. It was... well, and I think they proposed it to the Pakistanis as well, so it would bring together both parties.

It was proposed by Peter MacKay, the Foreign Minister, when he went to meet President Musharraf. That's pretty much the detail that I know, but there is more detail, so I'll get back to the office and get the note for you.

Q: (inaudible)...or equipment or...

APPATHURAI: No, it would have to include all of those things, and I can tell you there were discussions amongst many NATO nations to improve the Afghan capacity, for example, for surveillance. That includes ground sensors, potentially unmanned area vehicles and other surveillance equipment.

Surveillance is one of the key areas, obviously, for a border of this size and this difficulty. So that is one of the areas which NATO, NATO nations are all looking at. Ah... well...

Q: It's a real short one anyway. Just so I can understand the order of things, the discussion between the Chiefs of Defence this morning, coordination, that arose from the incident in Helmand? Cause and effect?

APPATHURAI: Well, they were always going to discuss Afghanistan. That was key. And one of the areas they discussions, one of the issues they discussed was also how to generate more mobile training teams, for example, for Afghan national security forces. We do not have as may as we need, and they wish to have more.

So it wasn't the only issues that was discussed in the context of Afghanistan, but I would certainly imagine that the incidents, not just yesterday but over the past little while, added energy to that element of that discussion.

Q: (inaudible)... Dutch Television. As you are aware of, the mandate for the Dutch troops expires next year for all of them. Are there already member states who are willing to take over?

APPATHURAI: The discussion on looking forward is beginning, but of course it's not just the Dutch whose mandate is due, as you put it, to expire next year, but also the Canadians the year after, so the question of force generation is one that's continually ongoing. I can tell you that the Supreme Allied Commander is in constant discussion, not just with the 26, but with all 37 NATO countries looking forward to that.

I obviously am not going to go into great detail here as to the discussion that he's had with any individual nation. That would not be appropriate, but if you want to follow up that's fine.

Q: Because former Minister of Defence Voorhoeve said this morning that if you don't make it very clear that you won't stay, then NATO will never, ever help you finding others to take over. Is that a correct interpretation of how it works in NATO?

APPATHURAI: What's made clear publicly and what's made clear privately are two different things. The Supreme Allied Commander is in daily contact with his Chief of Defence colleagues. There are no secrets, there are no codes, they all have open discussions. These are government decisions to be taken by governments.

So that is really the most I can say. They are in constant discussion about this issue very clearly and very openly, but behind closed doors.

Q: Susanna (inaudible), Broadcasting Company. I was just wondering after NATO-Russia meeting tomorrow will there be any press conference, a briefing of what was said?

APPATHURAI: Well, certainly General Baluyevsky is going to have a press conference. I'm doing his advertising for him, but I believe it'll be at six, is that right? Five-thirty or six.

UNIDENTIFIED: (inaudible)...

APPATHURAI: It may just Russian journalists. That's a good point. Contact the Russian mission if you want to talk to General Baluyevsky.  I don't know, I don't know. Talk to the Russian mission. I just heard he was planning something, but I don't know any details.

We will have a press statement released by General Henault, the Chairman of the Military Committee. That is all we are planning for the moment. But we will see tomorrow how it goes.

Q: (inaudible)...

APPATHURAI: Written. Written statement. Which we will put out. We will see how it goes.

Q: James, in Oslo NATO asked the Russians for an explanation on the scope and timetable of the... their suspension on CFE. Has NATO got an explanation or do you expect one tomorrow?

APPATHURAI: I don't think the full details of what President Putin meant are fully clear yet, so tomorrow will be a good opportunity, if general Baluyevsky wishes to raise them. We have already had a NATO-Russia Council meeting with Ambassador Totsky. But I can't say, and I'll speak on a personal basis, that it was entirely clear at the end of the meeting precisely what the details were.

Last one.

Q: A complementary question. I would... in your view is INF treaties questions be raised as well by the Russians or by NATO because Moscow has also, not threaten, I would say, but warn that they might have to review that all treaty unilaterally.

APPATHURAI: Certainly I don't expect any NATO nation to raise the INF treaty. If General Baluyevsky intends to raise it then that's something we'll see tomorrow.

Thanks folks.