SECRETARY GENERAL’S
SPEECH
AT THE EMIRATES CENTER FOR STRATEGIC
STUDIES AND RESEARCH
ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES -- 24 JANUARY 2008
Excellencies, Ladies and
Gentlemen,
Thank you very much for the invitation and for those kind words of
introduction. Let me first of all
say how pleased I am to be here, and to thank the prestigious Emirates Center
for welcoming me to these very impressive facilities. And let me use this opportunity to pay
tribute to the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan for having established this Center,
and having made the Emirates a real focal point for strategic studies here in
the Gulf region.
My visit to
Abu
Dhabi today is the first ever official visit
by a NATO Secretary General – and given the pace of NATO’s developing
cooperation with the countries of the Gulf region, I expect that it will not be
the last. There are many good
reasons for us to further our cooperation, to broaden it to new areas, and make
it more effective.
And I
appreciate the opportunity to address these issues before such a distinguished
audience.
Let me start with the big picture.
And that big picture, of course, is all about globalisation. Increasingly, over the past few years,
all our nations have come
to realise that globalisation is not only a means of opening up economies,
lifting people out of poverty, and promoting democratic values, the sunny, good
side of globalisation. But we have
seen that globalisation is also, unfortunately, a vehicle for importing
radicalism, religious fanaticism and the techniques of terrorism into our own
societies, as well as it has facilitated the free flow of goods, including the
most dangerous ones, supporting nuclear, biological or chemical weapons
programmes.
Nuclear proliferation, which for the past thirty years appeared to be a
secondary problem, has taken centre stage again with the ambitions of
Iran and
North
Korea. Iran’s uranium enrichment activities and missile
programmes are indeed a continuing concern to the NATO Allies, as they are, of
course, to many countries here in this region as well as the broader
international community. That is
why all Allies welcome and support the UN-process that seeks to resolve this
issue. NATO as such plays no part
in this diplomatic process, but we do seek to reinforce it. Just last month, our Foreign Ministers
urged Iran to comply with UN Security Council
Resolutions 1737 and 1747. We
expect that Iran will give the IAEA all the information it
needs.
Diminishing
energy reserves and water scarcity are another challenge that threatens economic
and social gains and are a potent cause for conflict. There again, Emiratis know what I am
talking about: your country has just embarked on a transparent, civilian nuclear
power generation programme and you have been practising water desalinisation for
years.
Finally, weak and failing states, once considered a concern only for
their immediate neighbours, can have truly global
implications.
This much is clear, Ladies and Gentlemen: the big picture does not
inspire a great deal of optimism.
So how do we
respond? Well, there is really only
one answer. And that is to pursue
new approaches to security cooperation.
Bold and innovative approaches which go beyond established geographical,
cultural, religious or institutional boundaries – and which promote a
qualitatively new level of cooperation between nations and
organisations.
It is that kind of openness
and engagement which is very much the hallmark of NATO today. Many people, even in the
Alliance’s own member countries, still remember
the old NATO, which successfully defended the West during the Cold War. The Alliance has every reason to be proud of that
achievement, and we are – but we are not resting on our laurels, and we have
moved on. Over the past few years,
NATO has adapted to the new, 21st century risks and challenges and
turned into a very flexible security instrument. An instrument at the service not just of
its own 26 member nations, but also, and increasingly, at the service of the
wider international community as well.
While collective defence remains the core purpose of NATO, we all realise
that we no longer need to defend Western Europe against the threat of a massive invasion from the
East. We all agree that a purely
territorial understanding of security is simply too narrow to cope with the new
security challenges before us. That
we cannot afford to wait for these challenges to come to us. And that we must be prepared to tackle
them as and where they emerge – even if that may mean sending our military
forces far away from our traditional European
borders.
And so, today, over 60,000 men and women in uniform are deployed under
NATO’s operational command in several demanding, United Nations-mandated
operations on three different continents – ensuring stability and protecting the
fundamental rights and interests of millions of people, indeed the vast majority
of whom are Muslims.
I am sure that you are all aware of our engagement in
Afghanistan, the Alliance’s biggest and most challenging operation
– to promote peace and democracy in Afghanistan, and to help ensure that the country will
never again be an exporter of terrorism, crime and instability to its neighbours
and the rest of the world.
But NATO today is doing much more than that. The Alliance is also keeping the peace in
Kosovo,
where we face a particularly challenging period ahead of a final resolution of
Kosovo’s status. NATO ships are patrolling the
Mediterranean
sea in a
counter-terrorist operation, “Operation
Active Endeavour”, an operation launched after 9/11 under Article 5. It is interesting to note that, as we
speak, Russian ships are sailing side by side with NATO ships. We are training Iraqi and Afghan
security forces. We have assisted
the African Union’s peacekeeping operation in Darfur with airlift, and are now providing similar support
in Somalia.
And we have been involved in major disaster response and humanitarian
relief operations, especially after the devastating earthquake that struck
Pakistan a few years
ago.
I want to stress that, in all these different missions and operations,
NATO is a team player. We do not
want to be a global policeman, that is not and should not be NATO’s ambition, or
to compete with the United Nations.
We are working both in the interest of, and indeed closely with, the rest
of the international community.
Whether in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Darfur or elsewhere – we do realise that civilian and
military actors must work together and reinforce each other’s efforts – because
there can be no security without development, and no development without
security. And that is why we are
keen to engage with the United Nations and other international institutions,
such as the European Union and the World Bank, in a comprehensive approach to
the common security challenges before us.
We are determined, at the same time, to develop closer cooperation not
just with other organisations, but also with individual nations, wherever they
may be located on the map.
Countries that realise that they, too, are not immune from the new global
risks and threats. And countries
that are interested in working together with NATO, in a common effort, to
enhance both the security of their own citizens, and the stability of the
international community more generally.
Against this background, NATO continues to work hard to enhance its
so-called Mediterranean Dialogue with seven countries in Northern Africa and the Middle East.
Our practical cooperation and political dialogue with these countries has
increased significantly over the past decade. And there was a highly successful
meeting between the Foreign Ministers of NATO and those of our Mediterranean
partner countries in Brussels to advance our cooperation still
further.
In 2004 we also launched a special initiative – the Istanbul Cooperation
Initiative, or ICI – to reach out to, and engage with, the countries here in the
Gulf region, and to offer them an opportunity to cooperate with the
Alliance. We were pleased to see the
United Arab
Emirates join the Initiative together with
Kuwait,
Qatar and
Bahrain, and we are hopeful that
Saudi
Arabia and Oman will also join the ICI in the not too
distant future.
There is an obvious mutual interest here, and we all stand to gain if we
work more closely together. The
security of the countries in the Gulf region matters to NATO – but the
Alliance also matters to your security. Not one of our nations can shield itself
from the global risks and threats of the 21st century that I
highlighted earlier. Extremism,
trans-national crime and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are a
threat to us all. We share a common
interest in the future of Afghanistan and
Iraq, and a stable Middle East more generally. We also have a common interest in energy
security, and the safety of supply lines and energy infrastructure, whether we
are suppliers, transit countries or consumers. If we want to meet those challenges we
simply have to cooperate. Bilateral
cooperation is important, of course, as shown by the recent high-level visits to
your country of the American and French Presidents. But multilateral cooperation, including
with NATO, offers important added value for all of us. And as the scope of NATO’s operations
has broadened to areas that are of closer interest to you, such as
Southern
Asia, it makes
even more sense for us to work together.
That message has obviously resonated here in the Gulf region, and
especially in the United Arab
Emirates. And
quite frankly, that was no surprise to us.
Because even before the launch of the ICI, this country showed a strong
determination to be a provider of security well beyond its own region, by
contributing to NATO’s successful peacekeeping operation in the Balkans during
the 1990s. These last few years,
the Emirates have very quickly become a most active participant in the ICI. I am very certain that my official talks
here today will once again clearly demonstrate that the leaders of this country
do not only have a very sound understanding of the common security challenges
before us, but also a genuine interest in pursuing further cooperation with NATO
to address those common challenges.
And we very much welcome that.
Our practical cooperation has intensified significantly these last few
years, and
I am convinced that our political consultations will follow the
same path. Much of our interaction
today, but not all, is focused on military-to-military cooperation.
The Emirates have sent a growing
number of participants to NATO courses and seminars. There have been several successful
expert team meetings to discuss nuclear matters, public information and other
issues. We welcome the decision of
the Emirates’ authorities to appoint a Liaison Officer to NATO, which should
greatly facilitate our cooperation.
And if, as I expect, we will soon conclude an information sharing
agreement, that will allow the Emirates to make even better use of the wide menu
of activities available under the ICI.
Let me just highlight one area in which the Emirates has shown a
particular interest, and that is training and education. NATO is keen to share more widely with
interested ICI partners our unique expertise in training military forces – to
help them to build forces that are interoperable with those of the NATO Allies,
and able to work together more effectively in actual missions and
operations. We have already created
several new opportunities for cooperation in this area. We have made progress towards the
establishment of a dedicated faculty at the
NATO Defense College in Rome, and the creation of a
network of national training and educational establishments, in which
I hope
and expect the Emirates Center will also play a prominent role. We very much see this as a two-way
process, in which the Emirates may learn from NATO but we can also benefit from
your country’s experience, especially in peace support operations. It is a two-way street indeed. And so we look forward to the Emirates’
continued interest, and engagement, in this area of training and
education.
Over the past few years, the opportunities for mutually beneficial
practical cooperation between the Emirates and NATO have continued to grow. And today they range from the fight
against terrorism and other so-called hard security issues to disaster response
and scientific cooperation. As a
matter of fact, given the increasing scope of our cooperation, there is merit in
trying to structure and focus it better, and to make sure that we – NATO and the
Emirates -- get the most out of the time and effort that we put into it. To this end, the
Alliance has offered its four ICI
partners
the possibility to elaborate an Individual Cooperation Programme
with the Alliance.
And we would certainly welcome if the Emirates were the first ICI country
to conclude such a Programme with us.
Ladies and
Gentlemen,
Until a few years ago, the very notion of a NATO Secretary General
visiting
Abu Dhabi to discuss closer cooperation would have
raised many eyebrows – both here in the Emirates, and within the NATO
Alliance. But today, it makes
eminent sense. Because more and
more, the security of all our nations is affected by what is happening elsewhere
on the globe. All our nations face
the same complex, inter-related, and potentially lethal risks and threats –
profound challenges that we can really only come to terms with if we work
together. And promoting that
cooperation, and taking it further, is the main objective of my visit here
today.
At the beginning of my remarks, I noted that – at face value – the big
picture of today’s overall security environment did not inspire a lot of
optimism. But let me tell you that
I am confident about our ability to deal with the security challenges posed by
globalisation. NATO’s next
Summit meeting, in Bucharest at the beginning of April, will underline
the Alliance’s readiness, and its
determination to reach out to other nations and organisations to foster a
comprehensive approach to the challenges before us.
The
United Arab
Emirates, for their part, have taken a very constructive
approach towards developing greater dialogue and cooperation with the
Alliance.
Our common interests are clear, and there are many opportunities for
fruitful, mutually beneficial cooperation between us. Let us grasp those opportunities –
together.
Thank you.