- Your excellencies, members of the diplomatic corps,
ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Today we are delighted to host Ms. Rose Gottemoeller,
Deputy Secretary General of NATO.
Ms. Gottemoeller is visiting Budapest on the occasion
of the NATO Transformation Seminar held this week.
This is a major event and participants
are coming from all corners of the alliance.
The secretary general, permanent representatives,
chairmen of the NATO Military Committee,
military representatives, and strategy commanders
are coming together to discuss the strategy challenges
that NATO will likely face over the near to long term.
Ms. Gottemoeller has had a distinguished career
as an expert of arms control and nonproliferation.
Before joining NATO as deputy secretary general in 2016,
she has spent more than a decade in the Department of State,
and prior to that
with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
She is the best example
of what a great career a researcher can have.
Being in a research institute, it's really inspiring.
Your excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
the security landscape around Europe
has been changing in the past couple of years
and NATO has to face traditional and emergent challenges.
Nation states and non-state actors.
Hybrid wars and civil wars.
Some of these problems pose
a direct daily threat to NATO countries.
Others may not be as direct,
but they have a potential to evolve
and further alter our security environment.
Hungary, due to its delicate geographical location
between the north and the south, the east and the west,
has strong interests in both regional dimensions of NATO.
We are actively participating in NATO reassurance measures,
setting up a NATO Force Integration Unit
in the city of Szekesfehervar,
sending a company-sized unit to the Baltics
as part of the Visegrad Four rotation presence,
and providing air assets for the Baltic air policing mission
in theaters on the 19th.
Since the World Summit,
defense spending has become a major issue once again.
In 2012, we already made a commitment
to increase our defense budget.
We started in 2016 as promised.
The Hungarian Defence Forces budget
will reach 2% of the GDP by 2026
according to the original plans,
although there are already discussions
for an earlier increase.
But NATO is not only about defense budgets,
tanks, airplanes, and military exercises.
As our Associate Fellow General Imre Porkolab
has written recently, and I quote,
"Resurgence of state actors,
"protracted transnational challenges
"are exponentially interrelated
"and the high-speed disruptive technological innovation
"creates opportunities
"in an increasingly unpredictable context.
"Since these security challenges are very different,
"the alliance should recognize that the most significant
"and capable threat to its core interests
"is a systemic asymmetry
"between traditional bureaucratic organizations
"and networks," end quote.
This is the point I would also like to emphasize.
NATO must adapt its needs to become more networked and agile
because in the new security environment
the alliance multinational bureaucratic organization
could be theoretically too slow to respond.
These few remarks offered just a brief insight
into the various challenges NATO is facing in 2017.
But as a part of European reassurance measures,
we are more than interested to hear
how the alliance wants to tackle these challenges,
and for that we have the best inside source in the room.
Dear Deputy Secretary General, the floor is yours.
Thank you.
(audience applauding)
- Thank you very much, Marton,
for that very kind introduction.
It's a great day here in Budapest.
Beautiful, it's still grey and rainy in Brussels,
so it's great to be here for that reason.
But also to have an opportunity to visit
the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade,
which I know has a long history
that is very much attached to the modern Hungarian state.
It's a great honor to be here and to have the opportunity
to speak with you and to share some thoughts
about NATO and where it is going.
Also I just wanted to say how glad I was to see
so many representatives of the universities here in Budapest
signed up to be here today.
I see some younger faces in the audience.
I hope you won't be shy about asking questions.
And in fact, I'm going to keep my remarks short
so we have plenty of time for questions.
But again, let me begin by thanking
not only the institute and the team here,
but thanking the people and government of Hungary
for being such a strong and committed NATO ally.
Your nation has made significant contributions
to our collective defense,
to the fight against terrorism,
and to reducing instability beyond our borders.
I wanted to share a few specifics.
Last November, we established a small
but important headquarters here in Hungary,
one of our new NATO Force Integration Units.
The director already mentioned that.
We now have eight of these small headquarters
in the eastern part of the alliance.
The others are in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.
This network in Central and Eastern Europe
performs several critically important functions
for NATO and our collective security:
military planning, exercises,
and facilitating reinforcements, if they are needed.
More broadly, they symbolize NATO's solidarity
and the commitment to collective defense.
To the idea that we are united and will defend one another.
Hungary is also one of the largest contributors of forces
to our KFOR mission in Kosovo.
That ensures a safe and secure environment
for all the people of Kosovo,
in a region which is central to Europe's security.
In Afghanistan, Hungarian forces serve with bravery
and professionalism as part of NATO's mission to train,
advise, and assist Afghan forces.
They in this way can secure their country
and deny safe haven to international terrorists.
Later this year, Hungarian troops will deploy to the Baltics
as part of our ongoing assurance measures.
Hungary will also support
our Multinational Framework Brigade in Romania
as part of our tailored forward presence
in the Black Sea region.
Your country has contributed to NATO trust funds
for cyber defense, for medical rehabilitation,
and this as part of our support for Ukraine.
So, now comes the big question of the day,
defense burden sharing.
And I wanted also to say a word of thanks to Hungary
for increasing defense spending.
At our Wales Summit in 2014,
Hungary and all NATO allies agreed
to the Defense Spending Pledge,
committing allies to increase defense spending
to 2% of GDP within a decade.
Since then, Hungary has stopped the cuts
in the defense budget
and has increased defense spending in real terms.
We welcome this very much.
We are also encouraging Hungary
to maintain the momentum going forward.
Because in a more dangerous world,
we need to invest in our security and keep our nations safe.
I wanted to underscore as I touch on this topic that,
of course, President Trump coming into the White House,
throughout his campaign, and in recent months
has made defense burden sharing an important priority
and talked about it rather in strong terms.
But it's really important to recollect
that the decisions in this regard were reached
at the Wales summit in 2014 and since that time
the cuts have stopped across the NATO alliance
and the numbers are starting to come up.
We can return to this in our discussion period if you wish.
Now, let's say a few words about NATO's adaptability.
That's the very purpose of my visit to Budapest today
and the NATO Transformation Seminar.
For almost 70 years, NATO has kept the peace in Europe.
We have been successful because we have been able
to change as the world has changed.
During the Cold War,
our focus was collective defense and deterrence.
But after the fall of the Berlin Wall
and the dissolution of the Soviet Union,
we adapted to the changed circumstances.
Our focus broadened to include
crisis management beyond our borders.
Going out-of-area was a paradigm shift for the alliance.
In the 1990s, we embraced change
and helped to stop large-scale bloodshed
in the Western Balkans.
Before the 1990s,
NATO did not work with any partner countries.
Now we work with a network of 41 partners
in Central Europe, Eastern Europe,
Central Asia, and beyond.
Thank you.
I wanted to take note
that we have a new partner now, Columbia,
as our most recent partner and our first in Latin America.
So we are truly looking for ways
to provide wide ranging partnership opportunities
to countries that can help to increase net security
in their regions and across the world as a whole.
We welcome this very, very much.
As a result of working effectively with our partners,
today NATO is smarter and a more agile alliance.
By the way, we also have international partnerships
with international organizations
as diverse as the UN and the EU on one side
and the International Red Cross on the other.
So it's not only country partnerships,
but also with some international organizations.
Our evolution also included the addition
of 12 new NATO members between 1999 and 2009,
beginning with Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland.
This infusion of new members and new perspectives
has spurred organizational change and new thinking.
After the terrorist attacks in the United States
on September 11, 2001, we invoked Article 5
for the first time, that is our collective defense clause.
We deployed AWACS to patrol American skies.
And we deployed our largest combat mission in Afghanistan,
to ensure that it would never again
become a safe haven
for international terrorists
planning to attack our countries.
The pace of NATO's transformation
has increased over the past few years.
2014 was a major watershed in NATO's recent evolution.
In response to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea
and the rise of ISIL, it became clear
that NATO must engage in both
the enhancement of collective security
and also projecting greater stability beyond our borders.
We must do both at the same time.
And indeed those were the core objectives
that emerged from the Warsaw summit in July of 2016.
So we are pursuing a two-track approach to Russia,
combining strong defense and deterrence
with an openness for dialogue.
Indeed, when tensions are high,
we need dialogue more than ever to reduce risks
and increase mutual predictability and confidence.
NATO is a defensive alliance.
Everything that we do is defensive, proportionate,
and fully in line with our international commitments.
Our forces do not pose a threat to any country.
Our goal is to prevent conflict, not to provoke conflict.
All of NATO's defensive actions are designed
to ensure that the safety and security
of our member countries is upheld,
and that the shared values
on which NATO was founded are upheld.
Every ally needs to respect and promote these principles:
democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law.
We are working closely with our network of partners
to increase stability to the south and the east.
Because if our neighbors are more stable,
we are more secure.
We are working closely with partners to the east
such as Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
Our training and defense capacity building efforts
in these countries have made a difference,
helping them defend their independence
and better face external threats,
while strengthening their own institutions
and fighting corruption,
which is an endemic problem in many places.
NATO and the EU are now taking
our level of cooperation to a new level.
We recently agreed on more than 40 proposals
in several key areas, including dealing with hybrid
and cyber threats and building the capacity of our partners.
We recognize that each organization working alone
does not have all of the tools and resources needed
to effectively address all of the challenges that we face,
both military and non-military.
By working together,
we can build and leverage our capabilities.
We like to say that neither the EU nor NATO
has all the tools in the tool box,
but when we put them together we form a coherent whole.
We do have to avoid duplication however.
We must complement each other
and not compete with each other.
And that's exactly what we are doing.
So NATO, supported by our network of partners,
has been involved in a great deal
to enhance our collective defense
and also to project greater stability to the south and east.
So, concluding thoughts.
For almost 70 years,
NATO's unique bond between Europe and North America
has helped to ensure peace and prosperity
on both sides of the Atlantic.
Today, NATO is as vital as ever.
Our alliance is strong and continues to adapt.
That has been a major theme at our seminar here in Budapest,
and will remain a major theme
when NATO leaders meet in Brussels at the end of May.
You may have seen that it's been announced
by not only Secretary General Stoltenberg
who's in Washington, but also by the Trump White House
that there will be a leaders meeting
on May 25th in Brussels.
So we will continue very much to rely
on Hungary's contribution to our mutual efforts
and truly look forward to working with you going forward.
I think there is so much that we can do together
and we have to be constantly mindful
of the better ways that we can work together.
So thank you very much for attention again.
It's good to see so many old friends
and colleagues in the audience
as well as so many new faces and young faces.
I look forward to our discussion very, very much.
Thank you.
(audience applauding)
- Thank you very much Madame Deputy Secretary General.
Just a short note before we get started
with the questions and answers is that,
I know that many of you from the press corps are here.
We will reserve 10 to 15 minutes
for you to ask questions at the end of this session.
So we're expecting questions from the audience before that,
but I know that you're looking at answers
for your questions so you will be not forgotten.
And with that I would like to monopolize on my position
as the moderator of the event for today
and I would like to ask you that,
if I look at the new Foreign Policy Concept of Russia,
it's not so friendly towards NATO if I can say.
And also many people argue that right now
we're experiencing something like a new Cold War
even though this might be a little bit overstretched concept
for the current situation, but I was just wondering
what is NATO's position on cooperation with Russia?
And how we could just deconstruct
the current level of misunderstanding and distrust
between these two great entities?
- Well that's the question of the moment
and we grapple with it every day,
but I mentioned during my remarks
that we're pursuing a dual track approach
and we've been very, very focused on that
really since the Warsaw Summit.
And that means we have to be prepared to deter and defend
if necessary, and I focus on deter and defend,
but we also must be open for dialogue.
And there's a very important reason for that.
Our view, it's in everybody's national security interest.
That goes for the NATO allies
and that goes for Russia as well.
It is in our mutual national security interest
to ensure that accidents or incidents
do not spiral out of control, turn into crisis,
and eventually escalate to conflict.
So there's some very, very practical reasons
why we need to engage in dialogue
and it's important in uncertain times to ensure that
that dialogue is as rich, as productive,
and as pragmatic as possible.
So there is no contradiction there
from the perspective of NATO policy
and for many countries around the room as well.
It makes a great deal of sense.
Now let me address foursquare your question
about whether we're facing a new Cold War.
We're all concerned about the situation
between Russia and the countries of this alliance.
It does seem often
that there is potential
for very complicated situations to develop.
And we are all very concerned as I mentioned in my remarks
about Russia's aggressive actions in seizing
Crimean territory, Ukrainian territory in 2014.
So we have to continue to try to resolve that problem,
the Minsk Agreements must be fully implemented.
We need to keep the pressure on to do that
through the sanctions regime
and through our national policies overall.
But at the same time, I look back to the Cold War years
where my career began in the mid-1970s
and I remember a much different time
and the most I would say practical difference
is to do with lines of communication.
You know, during the Cold War
we had very, very few lines of communication
with the Kremlin and with the Soviet Union overall.
I know for Hungary and the, at that time, Warsaw Pact states
you could describe a little bit different circumstance
I'm quite sure, but for the countries who were
at that time members of NATO and my own country,
the United States, there were very limited ways
to keep the lines of communication open
with the Kremlin and with the USSR overall.
Nowadays I see a much, much different circumstance
where lines of communication are open
not only at an official level,
but also at the level of publics
and in the media realm as well.
Again, we're all concerned about media disinformation,
the problems that have emerged in the context
of the recent election campaigns and so forth,
so we have to be mindful of disinformation and propaganda,
but at the same time I welcome very much that there are just
so many potential avenues of communication now
and I think that is a major and significant difference
with the Cold War era.
- Thank you very much.
And before we really open up for questions
and I would also like to get
our third microphone up and running,
I was just wondering that considering President Donald Trump
and his comments on NATO and whether the European allies
are sharing the burdens of collective defense,
I'm always wondering that if I look at his cabinet,
if I look at Secretary of Defense James Mattis for example,
he's a great friend of NATO I think we can say that,
but especially when President Trump goes on Twitter
I start to have doubts whether the US
is still fully supporting NATO.
And I was just wondering that,
especially with the 2% requirement,
are we seeing the same old comments from the US
that everybody should spend more on defense?
Like old wines in new bottles, put it in a Donald Trump way,
or are we really experiencing a change
in the US policy towards NATO?
- Well first of all, I'm going to underscore a message
that my boss, Jens Stoltenberg,
the Secretary General of NATO constantly is underscoring
and that is these goals were out there
well before Mr. Trump even ran for president.
So beginning in Wales in 2014,
we were at that time seeing a turnaround
in the level of defense spending.
At that point in 2015 we saw that,
as we put it, the bleeding had stopped.
The defense budgets were beginning across the NATO alliance
to rise above the line into plus territory.
And then in 2016 we actually saw a 3.8% increase,
again, across the alliance,
which amounted to about $10 billion.
We saw this effect occurring again
as a result of that watershed year of 2014,
where we were all so concerned about
what was happening in Ukraine
and what was happening with the rise of ISIL.
So the trend was in the right direction
before Mr. Trump arrived in office.
But Jens Stoltenberg likes to stress, as do I,
that Mr. Trump has lent a boost to these efforts
and lent some real momentum to them
and it's led to a lot of the countries across the alliance
taking a serious and solid look at what they can do
to up their commitments to defense spending.
We actually consider Mr. Trump a great ally in this effort.
- Well, if I look at defense spending,
I can only agree with that.
With this I would like to open up
the Q&A session to the audience.
If anybody has any questions please raise your hand,
introduce yourself briefly, and ask a really short
and to the point question if possible.
We have the lady here in the front
and then the second one in the back.
- [Woman] Thank you, Ms. Gottemoeller.
I don't know if that works, but...
It was a very interesting presentation for all of us.
I have two short questions.
The first one is that, as mentioned,
the times are different than they were.
There are certain changes going around
and what I mean is the coming Brexit.
Do you expect any changes
or impact of the Brexit on the NATO situation?
My second question is about
the so-called open door policy of NATO.
What is the situation?
Can we expect something in the near future
like the May meeting summit with NATO?
- I'll take that one first.
We are in fact looking forward to welcoming
our 29th member of NATO, Montenegro,
and we hope that we will be able to do it
at the time of the meeting on May 25th.
So it will be absolutely great
if we can raise the Montenegrin flag
with the other flags of the 28 nations
now in the NATO alliance in front of our new headquarters.
So that is the goal.
Clearly, we cannot answer for processes
in different countries in the parliaments,
in the US Senate for example.
Most of the allies now have completed
their accession ratification process,
but there are, I believe there are three,
and the United States is one of them, still working on it.
So we will see, but certainly the goal
is to welcome Montenegro and that I think is a good symbol
for NATO's continued commitment to the open door policy.
There is no change in that policy.
We are continuing to be committed to it.
Now, as far as Brexit is concerned,
the impact I see on NATO
is not really a,
it's not the situation as with the EU
when many, many things of course
will have to be discussed and negotiated and decided.
It's a different situation.
I do understand that the UK considers this
an opportunity to re-double its focus
on security in Europe
by working and continuing to be what it has been
up to this time, which is one of the leading nations in NATO
and one of its founding members.
So I do expect that we will continue along that line.
So for NATO per se, I don't see an enormous impact.
There are a lot of questions out there
about NATO-EU cooperation
in the defense and security sector,
that's a slightly different question.
What I see there, and it's certainly our resolution
as well as the resolution across town
at EU headquarters to ensure that, as I put it,
that we put our two tool boxes together
and continue to work on the basis
of the advantages that we each offer.
And so as a result of that,
I would say our emphasis is on complementarity
and not competition with the EU
as far as defense and security matters are concerned.
- [Marton] Thank you very much.
We have another question on the right side of the room,
if you wait and bypass this.
- [Mariam] Good afternoon, my name is Mariam.
I'm from the Embassy of Pakistan.
My question pertains to, it sort of builds on the question
regarding Brexit and its impact on EU and NATO relations.
My question is, given the recent meeting,
the Summit meeting of President Trump
with Chancellor Angela Merkel and the fall out of that
is not very optimistic if you consider it.
What options do you think that NATO
as a collective defense organization
has for Europe as either as a whole
in the collective security sense of the term?
Or will it be more inclined
to engage with countries on individual basis?
Because even after the election of President Trump
there was the statement by Donald Tusk,
saying that America is now a competitor to the EU.
How do you plan on reconciling the two views?
Thank you.
- Well, first of all, I don't think I will accept
your introductory comment that it wasn't a good meeting
between Chancellor Merkel and President Trump.
I don't actually know what kind of meeting it was
so I'd be cautious about press commentary
that portrays the outcome in a certain way.
I think frankly they had some,
from what I've been able to tell,
they had some good and frank discussions
and it's very clear to me that Germany will continue
to be one of the leading countries in the NATO Alliance
in terms of not only defense and security,
but also in terms of establishing
how we work together with the European Union.
The other point I'll make about
some of the wide ranging comments
that have emanated from Washington,
that have emanated from different places in Brussels,
that have emanated from the different capitals
of the alliance, we welcome debate.
There's nothing wrong with discussion and debate,
especially at a time when there are a lot of changes
in the overarching environment,
the political environment at the moment
with many elections going on in Europe.
I think we have to accommodate debate,
we have to take it on board,
but not let it stop
the momentum of work that we need to do.
So that's how I look at it.
There's a lot going on here obviously.
I already talked about the balance between the EU and NATO
in the defense and security relationship.
I frankly am optimistic because in December
at our Foreign Ministerial we had a very good declaration
launched again by the EU leadership, Mr. Tusk among them,
and again the Secretary General of NATO, Madame Mogherini,
also involved in that process.
Coming out of that has been
a very large set of projects,
42 projects overall, where the EU and NATO
are working together on on defense and security goals.
There are already some practical benefits of that
in terms of our two operations at sea.
Operation Sea Guardian together with the EU Operation Sophia
helping to control the flow of migrants
in the Central Mediterranean
and also the Aegean, that's a separate maritime operation.
So there are already some practical benefits
coming out of NATO-EU cooperation.
That's the trend line that I focus on
and that's the trend line
that we continue to need to develop.
Debate is important, but we can't let it distract us
from the pragmatic goals that
we are pursuing already successfully and need to expand.
- Thank you very much.
Your excellency, next question is yours.
- [Ambassador] Thank you, I'm the Romanian ambassador.
I have a question that refers to a mention
that you made during your introductory remark.
You mentioned the corruption and I think that
that's a theme of significant interest
for this region.
It is a theme of huge interest for my country.
In fact, we define corruption
as a threat to our national security
and that's one of the reasons we treat it so seriously.
So could you please elaborate more about this topic?
Thank you.
- First of all, I wanted to pay a compliment
to the Romanian people for their attention to this issue.
I think that's the hallmark of a healthy democracy
when the publics are seized of issues of national importance
and willing to speak out on them.
So I wanted to just pay my compliments in that regard.
The second thing I will say is that,
again, NATO stands for the rule of law.
This is our basic, I would say,
our moral super structure in the alliance,
that we stand for basic principles such as the rule of law,
sovereignty, territorial integrity, all those principles
that came through the organization
for security and cooperation in Europe process
at the end of the 1970s and into the 1980s
and are now well established.
We stand for those basic principles and among them
is the rule of law and that inherent in that is the fight,
the necessary fight against corruption.
So that's where NATO stands,
but what does NATO do about it?
And here I wanted to stress all the work that we do
on not only defense capacity building,
but institution building in countries
across our partner community
and also continuing work on these matters
inside the alliance.
It is important I think that we constantly be working
inside the Alliance as well as with our partners
to enhance our own institutions
and to build up their capacity,
in the realm of law enforcement for example,
and so NATO does what it can
in cooperation with allies and partners
to work in this area and we will continue to do so.
But we clearly are not the only institution
that must engage in these issues.
There are many, many others.
And national plans to fight this problem
are also of course of utmost importance.
- Fortunately, it is very good that my microphone is broken,
because I am the least important person in the room.
We apologize as for that.
And we have a question there in the back.
- [Samantha] Hello, my name is Samantha Peterson.
I'm from the International Federation
of Red Cross and Red Crescent and thank you very much
for the opportunity to have this exchange.
I have here two questions.
One is you mentioned very much
the increased cooperation also with the Red Cross
and talking very much about complementarity
and of course the special nature of the Red Cross movement
and our independence and neutrality,
if you could talk a little bit more about that.
The second questions would be,
we very recent also had a discussions
on the concern of the security on the Western Balkans
and the deteriorating or the rumblings
and our concern about the security there.
You were mentioning that you're working closely
with the European Union.
I assume that that would also be
one of the areas of cooperation,
so if you could talk a bit about that.
Thank you very much.
- Absolutely.
And let me just say very briefly
not only in this position at NATO,
but in my previous positions as well,
I have the greatest respect for the work
of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent.
I had many occasions to work on issues related
to the disarmament agenda in this area,
but that's only I know a small part of your work
and much is devoted to the plight of refugees,
humanitarian crises around the world,
so I will do no more on your first question than to comment
about my great personal respect
for the work that you do
and hope for your continuing success
in these very, very difficult areas.
On the second point, the Western Balkans.
That's both an area of great hope,
and I mentioned the Montenegrin accession to NATO,
so there is still progress in the area,
still countries are moving forward.
We still have the system of the so-called Dayton Accords
in place to help to manage
the relationships in the region,
and out of that grew mechanisms such as KFOR,
which has been helping over time to maintain the peace
in Kosovo and also to create there,
I talked about institution building a moment ago,
to create coherent and capable government systems
for that country.
There's some going-on that is positive and optimistic,
but at the same time at the moment
there is much that is lending to instability.
Obviously there is a lot of political competition going on
at the moment with a number of elections in the region,
very important elections.
But that is lending weight
to different kinds of political action
that's creating a lot of competition and issues.
Second, we are concerned about
the meddling of outsiders in the region,
concerned about the Russian Federation's role in the region.
We have the situation with the potential coup in Montenegro
and alleged involvement of the Russian Federation in that.
There's a lot of concerns
about outside influence contributing to instability.
And then furthermore it's the topic of corruption
and the economic system in that part of the world
and whether it is adequate to the task of providing
for the economic health and the livelihood
of populations of people living in that area.
Are those economies creating the jobs that will help people
to have a stable existence going forward?
All of these issues are coming together at once
and at the moment creating
a very, very difficult environment in the Western Balkans.
Again, what can NATO do about it?
First of all, we must continue to be present.
KFOR, I mentioned in my remarks,
has been present for a long time.
It's created added security,
it's added security and value in that way to that region.
It's helped with the institution building,
very, very important defense capacity building overall.
We must be present in the region,
and not only Kosovo and KFOR, but across the region.
We are involved in different types of cooperation
that help to build capacity.
They are one of my first,
well it was my first trip when I arrived at NATO in October
was to go to Montenegro for an emergency response exercise
that NATO organizes on an annual basis
in different countries.
The next one actually next year will be Bosnia-Herzegovina.
People say, "What, you do emergency response?"
But actually it was a great training exercise in that region
that has suffered from a lot of floods recently.
The whole exercise was built around rescuing civilians
in flood damaged regions and there were teams
from all over the place including, by the way,
a team from Serbia as well as a team from Ukraine,
as well as all across the region
there were different teams of emergency responders there.
So NATO's doing that kind of thing as well,
trying to create some basic capacity and capability.
But third, I think we can also contribute
by lending our presence in important settings.
Jens Stoltenberg, for example, has been speaking out
about concerns that we see.
He's been joining together with Madame Mogherini,
for example, in speaking out about the necessity
of constitutional practices being pursued in Macedonia
and the will of the people expressed at the ballot box
being implemented in Macedonia.
So that's just one example,
but those are three ways in which I think NATO,
again working together with the EU,
must remain engaged and involved in the Western Balkans now
because it is a serious situation.
- Thank you.
And I'd just like to thank the press for being so patient.
As we're approaching the last 10 minutes of our event
I was wondering if we have any questions
from the press as of now.
We'll start with the lady here.
- [Krista] I'm from Reuters.
My name is Krista Natan and I have two questions.
One is that the US has proposed new dates
for a NATO Foreign Ministerial meeting as it came out.
What are those new dates, can we have them?
And the second question is whether you are concerned
that Mr. Tillerson is going to Russia
exactly at the same time as Mr. Stoltenberg
is meeting President Trump?
- Well, first of all, I'm not aware that anything new
has been announced in Washington with regard to dates.
The last thing I heard from SecGen Stoltenberg,
who is there at the moment, is that of course
these are questions we will work to resolve
in terms of the scheduling matter.
All of the principals involved are busy people
so they have busy schedules.
But I want to stress in that regard
that NATO Ministerial dates
are a matter of consensus
among all the principals, among all the ministers
who are involved in such things.
So I don't expect there to be
any announcements out of Washington today anyway.
If Mr. Tillerson and SecGen have a chance
to discuss this matter, and I believe they will,
then it will have to be consulted with all the NATO allies.
So I don't expect any dates to emerge today.
Second thing is, as far as I can tell,
and I was tentatively watching
the Kremlin and MFA press feed yesterday,
I haven't seen any official announcements made either
about a visit by Mr. Tillerson to Moscow,
so I think it's premature to comment on any other aspect
of travel by secretaries or ministers
of foreign affairs or defense.
- Thank you, next question from the press?
The back?
- [Man] Thanks for being here and taking our questions.
I would like to seize the opportunity that,
my question is the following:
What is NATO's point of view
of the forming Russian and Turkey arms deal?
Does NATO see it as a risk on the coherence of the alliance?
- Well, first of all, as NATO allies,
the basic policy is, and this goes across the board,
that countries are free to form
their own security relationships.
Clearly NATO allies have decided that
they are going to be members of the NATO alliance
and that is their security relationship.
It also is clear though that countries make
their own sovereign decisions about arms purchases
and how they're going to modernize their military.
So the key point there for NATO,
as we think about it at NATO headquarters,
the key point is interoperability.
We want to have the most efficient and effective alliance
in terms of the ability of different members of the alliance
to operate together in peace time, crisis,
and we don't like to even think about this,
but we must plan ahead, in possible conflict.
And so interoperability is the key there
and I think that's the most important thing
for any member of the alliance to think about
as they consider arms purchases
or purchases of other types of equipment,
like radios for example, communications equipment.
Will those systems be interoperable across the alliance?
Because that's the way that the alliance
can operate most effectively.
I'm not going to comment.
Indeed, I haven't seen any confirmation
of any deals by any means.
But I think it's most important for members of the alliance
to focus on the importance of interoperability.
- Thank you, next one from the press?
He's not press, but he has a question
so I guess we can go forward.
- [Man] Thank you very much.
I'm from the Venezuelan Embassy.
I'd like to ask you about your remarks
about the cooperation with Columbia
considering the fact that the Latin American region
has been less present or perhaps neutral
in the international conflicts
and also the fact that the region
has agreed to renounce military mechanisms
to resolve conflicts as a way to declare ourselves
as someone of peace.
So if you don't mind please,
can you elaborate on your cooperation with Columbia?
Thank you very much.
- Absolutely.
And I have to say in my previous job,
when I was still in the Department of State,
I made my first trip to your part of the world last year
and had an opportunity to see what I think
are really beneficial results of those long negotiations
to end the civil war in Columbia
and to create the conditions for long standing peace
and development in that country and in your region overall.
So I'll make that general comment.
The second specific thing I'll say is,
yes indeed, Latin America has been a model
in terms of ensuring cooperation.
Cooperation and really an emphasis
on other types of interaction,
particularly on the trade and economic front.
But in the case of a number of Latin American countries,
you have been, I would say, a net provider of security
in the way you have participated
in international peace keeping operations
in different parts of the world.
And that is the area where Columbia now,
with the civil war we see
and we hope continuing to wind down,
be resolved moving into a period of peace
for that country itself.
Whether it can begin to be a net security provider
in looking to peace keeping operations
in other parts of the world and so that's one aspect,
one area that we are looking at.
But also after years of civil war, after years of conflict,
again, the kinds of NATO programs
that I was talking about a moment ago,
defense capacity building, institution building, et cetera,
these are areas where I think
we can have a very, very fruitful interaction with Columbia.
By the way, the reason I was going to Columbia
as Under Secretary of State was
because we had a lot of work going on there
in de-mining and counter IED,
dealing the with years of mines that had been laid down
and improvised explosive devices all along jungle trails
really affecting the livelihood
of local villagers and farmers.
Because, you know, their lines of communication,
the roads were mined, and so the United States
working together with international organizations
has a number of programs going on in Columbia
to do that kind of cleanup
and that's a big emphasis for NATO as well.
A lot of the cooperative programs we have going now
with Iraq, for example, in Afghanistan,
and other countries on this continent is,
they are related to counter IED work and de-mining.
I also see that there's a mutuality of interest there
that we can benefit from learning
about Columbia's experience in the NATO context
and we hope that we can benefit Columbia
by providing more information to them
and perhaps some backing and resources.
So it's really I think quite an interesting phenomenon.
Whether it will expand in other ways,
I don't know at this point.
- Krista, one last question.
- [Krista] Can I just go back to your remarks
on Montenegro and the alleged coup attempt?
Can you be a little bit more specific
about your concerns about Russia?
Can you be a little bit more specific about your concerns
regarding alleged Russian involvement in that coup attempt?
And do you believe that NATO
should actually boost its presence in the region?
Because you said we must be present,
but do you actually believe that NATO
should actually increase its presence to keep stability?
- I think that in terms of boosting our presence,
NATO has a well-established presence.
Now, I talked about the different ways we are present there,
including in doing things
like emergency response training and so forth.
We try to be as flexible as possible
in terms of working with the countries in the region
on what their needs are.
There are individual partnership programs
in each of those countries and so it's a matter
of figuring out what is most needed
to enhance defense capacity,
to enhance training opportunities, and that type of thing.
It's not a blanket decision.
It goes with the individual needs of each of the countries
with which we are partners in the region.
So that's number one.
Number two, your question about the alleged coup.
I would just say that we've been impressed
with the way Montenegrin authorities
have been pursuing the investigation.
They are cooperating it seems very well
with other countries in the region, including with Serbia.
And I don't want to comment further, because it's basically,
it's a law enforcement matter going on now,
but I just want to express a very strong admiration
with how the Montenegrin authorities have been handling it.
- Thank you very much and with that
I think we will conclude our event for today.
I would like to thank Deputy SecGen Rose Gottemoeller
for visiting us today,
taking the time from her absolutely pretty busy schedule
to take this hour to spend with us.
I would like to also thank the audience
for coming and asking very timely and important questions.
I would also like to say that we have another event tomorrow
which starts at noon
at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade,
the 60th anniversary of the Rome Treaty,
so it's going to be on the European Union.
You're more than welcome to attend this event too.
Hopefully we'll be in touch in the future
and we're expecting you back once again
at the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Thank you very much for coming
and have a very nice day.
(audience applauding)
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