DEPUTY SECRETARY GENERALÂ’S KEYNOTE DINNER
SPEECH
CONFERENCE ON “NATO’S TRANSFORMATION,
THE MEDITERRANEAN DIALOGUE, AND NATO-ISRAEL RELATIONS”
23 October 2006
Minister Livni,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you
very much, Foreign Minister Livni, for these kind words, and for making
us all feel so welcome.
Let me
also express my sincere gratitude to the Atlantic Forum of Israel and the
Institute for Policy and Strategy, for having organised, together with
NATOÂ’s Public Diplomacy Division, what I am sure will be a most
interesting conference.
My role
here this evening is that of a dinner speaker, and I have no intention of
pre-empting what will be said tomorrow, when we will tackle the
relationship between Israel and NATO from several angles. Indeed, I
have always been mindful of the saying that whoever invented the concept
of the dinner speech neither knew much about speeches, nor about
dinners. That said, let me share with you some general reflections
on NATO, on the Middle Eastern region, and why these two can no longer be
seen in isolation.
In about a
monthÂ’s time, NATOÂ’s Heads of State and Government will meet in the
Latvian capital of Riga for their next Summit meeting. NATO Summits
tend offer a fairly accurate depiction of where the Alliance
stands. Riga will be no exception. Its agenda will reflect
NATOÂ’s transformation from an Alliance geared to the territorial defence
of Western Europe into a framework for addressing
21st century security
challenges.
The Summit
will have three main areas of work operations, capabilities, and
partnerships. The first and foremost area is, obviously, NATOÂ’s
operations. Today, NATO Allies and many partner countries are
deployed on operations and missions on three continents. In Europe,
NATO is keeping the peace in the Balkans, notably in Kosovo where we are
facing challenging times in the months to come. In the
Mediterranean, in our Operation Active Endeavour, NATO is conducting
naval anti-terrorist patrols. In Afghanistan, in what is clearly
our most important and challenging mission, NATO is leading the
International Security Assistance Force, a mission that ranges from
peacekeeping to combat operations. In Iraq, NATO is training Iraqi
security forces. In Pakistan, after last yearÂ’s earthquake, NATO
provided humanitarian relief. And in Africa, NATO is airlifting
African Union troops to the crisis region of Darfur. It may
surprise you, but today more than 50,000 soldiers are deployed under NATO
command.
Why is
NATO so much in demand? I would offer two reasons why. First,
the Atlantic Alliance brings together North America and Europe two
continents that not only enjoy a unique level of cooperation with one
another, but which also feel a strong obligation to contribute to global
stability. And, second, NATO features both an exceptional political
consultation mechanism and a multinational military structure to
implement the decisions taken by its members. These two features
make NATO unique. And they give the Alliance the cohesion to adapt
and respond to new challenges like the multiplication of failed states,
the fight against terrorism or the proliferation of Weapon of Mass
Destruction.
This
adaptation is also reflected in our military transformation, the second
major area of work at the Riga Summit. It goes without saying that
the missions and operations NATO is conducting these days are extremely
demanding. We need forces that can react quickly; forces that can
be deployed over strategic distance, and then sustained over a long
period of time. And we need forces that are capable of performing
both high intensity combat tasks and post-conflict reconstruction
work.
We have
made good progress in developing such capabilities. The NATO
Response Force, which should be fully operational by the time of the Riga
Summit, will enable us to react to new challenges even more
quickly. We are also taking a hard look at our force planning and
force generation procedures, to better match our political decisions and
military commitments. And we are revising our funding
arrangements to make them fairer and more predictable, so that
nations can more easily commit to operations. All these steps will
ensure that future missions can be better planned, equipped, and paid
for.
The third
area is Partnerships. Partnerships with key institutions like the
UN and the EU or third countries. In most of the missions and operations
I mentioned earlier, NATO Allies do not act alone. They act with an
ever broader group of countries from all over the world from
Europe, from Central Asia, from the Asia-Pacific region, from Northern
Africa, and from the Middle East. Why? Because in a world of
global threats and challenges, our security interests converge,
irrespective of where our countries may sit on the map. And NATOÂ’s
partnership and cooperation policies must reflect this.
It is here
where the Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative
come into play. Already a decade ago, NATO launched its
Mediterranean Dialogue an effort to build trust with North African
and Middle Eastern countries, including Israel.
The
initial aim of the Dialogue was to improve mutual understanding, and to
dispel misconceptions about NATOÂ’s aims and policies. And progress has
been made even if some old stereotypes still have to be overcome. The
Mediterranean Dialogue was not intended as a tool to play a direct role
in the Middle Eastern peace process, or in handling other current
challenges of the region, such as IranÂ’s nuclear ambitions or the Lebanon
crisis. These are issues that other actors remain better
suited for. However, we felt that NATO could play a useful role in
promoting the logic of cooperative security a logic that has
ultimately carried the day in Europe, and that has yielded very
beneficial results.
The
Mediterranean Dialogue started slowly, but it gathered momentum.
The number of Dialogue partners grew from five to seven; our days:
Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, and of course
Israel. And the menu of concrete cooperation activities went up as
well. And I reveal no secret when I say that, from the outset,
Israel has been among the most enthusiastic Dialogue partners.
Two years
ago, at NATOÂ’s Istanbul Summit, we agreed on a more ambitious and
expanded framework for the Mediterranean Dialogue. At the same
time, we unveiled the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, to reach out to
interested countries in the Gulf region. Four of them have already
started political cooperation with the Alliance. Today, we are busy
implementing the expanded Dialogue agreed at Istanbul. And, with
very strong Israeli engagement, we are definitively moving from dialogue
to true partnership.
On the
political side, progress includes the first ever Defence MinistersÂ’
meeting in Taormina, Italy, earlier this year, as well as an informal
ambassadorial meeting in Morocco, which was the first ever high-level
meeting in a Mediterranean Dialogue country. In December 2004, we had a
first meeting at the level of Foreign Ministers and we are now
thinking about possible follow-up to those meetings. In addition to
greater political dialogue, the number of opportunities for concrete,
practical cooperation under the Mediterranean Dialogue process has
increased dramatically. For those of you who like statistics I can tell
you that, compared to 2004, the number of participants in Mediterranean
Dialogue activities almost doubled to well over 800 last year and should
be over 1000 this year.
The
enhanced Mediterranean Dialogue now offers far greater opportunities to
structure our cooperation in a more individualised way, so we can
maximise the flexibility inherent in our outreach policy. New tools and
mechanisms have been derived from the successful Partnership for Peace
programme and open to Mediterranean Dialogue countries. And I very
much hope that at Riga next month, Allies will agree to expand the
toolbox of practical cooperation activities even further. We
clearly need to retain a certain balance within the Mediterranean
Dialogue, but we also need to give countries like Israel even more
possibilities and a greater opportunity for
self-differentiation.
When I
look more closely at the Mediterranean Dialogue and focus on the
specifics of NATO-Israel cooperation, I am struck by how much we have
achieved and how quickly things are now moving forward.
We have
recently agreed an individual cooperation programme or ICP.
This programme is the first of its kind in the Mediterranean
Dialogue. It covers many areas of common interest, such as the
fight against terrorism and joint military exercises, where IsraelÂ’s
expertise is very much valued. And it should give greater focus and
impetus to our cooperation. While talking about the ICP, I should
like to take this opportunity to encourage Israel to publish this
document as a way of persuading other countries to start a similar
process already Algeria, Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia have expressed
an interest in this individualised process.
Just a few
weeks ago, an exchange of letters between NATO and Israel set the stage
for an Israeli contribution to “Active Endeavour”, NATO’s maritime
anti-terrorist operation in the Mediterranean Sea. This will be the
first contribution from a Mediterranean Dialogue nation and represents
another truly significant step forward for both NATO and Israel.
The posting of an Israeli Liaison Officer to the NATO Command in Naples
is a further indication of the vitality of our cooperation, as was the
demonstration of a NATO AWACS plane in Israel. And, last but not
least, over the course of this year, Israel has participated in two major
NATO/PfP military exercises in Romania and Ukraine.
Looking to
the future, one area where I believe we could make further progress is
education and training. Over the years, NATO has acquired a wealth
of experience and expertise in this area. Education and training
have been a highly successful feature of our outreach and partnership
activities with our Euro-Atlantic Partners. They are an integral part,
also, of several of our ongoing missions and operations. And it is no
surprise, therefore, that several of our Mediterranean partners have also
shown a growing interest in what NATO has to offer in this
area.
I expect
that next monthÂ’s NATO Summit in Riga will advance that kind of
cooperation, building on our tried-and-tested frameworks, such as the
NATO School in Germany or the NATO Defense College in Italy. Over
time, this process could evolve into a dedicated Training Centre in the
Middle East.
Having
said this, we are keen to pursue this initiative in close consultation
with our partners, and we are pleased with the positive reception that it
has already received.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
A new
chapter in the cooperation between Israel and NATO has opened. It
is a development that was long overdue; a development that corresponds to
the imperative of cooperation in a globalised world. But as we seek
to write this new chapter together, we must remain realistic about one
thing: without progress in the broader peace process in the Middle East,
we will not be able to exploit the full potential of our
cooperation. Without a renewed serious effort to solve the security
dilemma of this region, we will find time and again that the cooperation
in our Mediterranean Dialogue will be held hostage by outside
events. We must do our utmost to prevent this from happening.
Because our cooperation has acquired a strategic value in its own right.
Thank
you.