NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller addresses the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Tbilisi, Georgia
Thank you very much Mr. President, Ambassador Alli. I did want to say right at the outset that I very much liked your introductory remarks this morning and I wanted to subscribe to them whole heartedly. Also, Mr. Prime Minister I noted during your remarks that you said that Georgia’s on a stable path, a stable movement toward NATO and E.U. integration and I think that the extensive program you laid out in your remarks also shows that you are on that stable path so thank you for that very full briefing to this Assembly this morning. I’m really glad to be here in Tbilisi in independent Georgia. I know that on May 26th just last Friday you celebrated 99 years since your first Independence Day but then there was a long interregnum when you were not fully independent, so every one of these Independence Days you are celebrating now is especially precious and I congratulate Georgia on that celebration. And this is a very special meeting of the Assembly. Last time the NPA held one of its meetings outside of NATO in an aspirant country was in 2002, so this is a very special meeting in a very special aspirant country. As Parliamentarians, you both represent and inform your constituents and you hold your governments and political leaders to account for the decisions they take, decisions that often have a profound effect on our security. I thank you all for the important work that you do. Of course, on May 25th the leaders of many of your countries met in Brussels at our new NATO headquarters. I would like to update you this morning on the progress made during that meeting and then I will be delighted to take the questions that you have. I’ll do my best to open them.
The meeting focused on two themes. First was the fight against terrorism and fair burden sharing for our security. Two extraordinarily important themes that led to extensive discussions in both cases. Let me say a few words about each. First the fight against terrorism. Ever since the United States was attacked on 9/11 NATO has been involved in the fight against international terrorism. The day after the attacks and for the very first time NATO invoked Article 5. The Collective Defense Clause of our founding Treaty, the Washington Treaty which says that an attack on one is an attack on all. Soon after NATO AWACS planes patrolled American skies against the possibility of further attack and in the years since hundreds of thousands of Europeans and Canadians have served side by side with U.S. troops in Afghanistan under a NATO flag and many partners have joined them including importantly Georgia. From partner countries, many have served and many have paid the ultimate price, we thank you for that. Today NATO still has around 13,000 allied and partner troops in Afghanistan with our Resolute Support Mission to train, advise and assist our Afghan colleagues. NATO’s also supporting the global coalition to defeat ISIL with our AWACS surveillance aircraft. But as the world’s premier security alliance we know we have untapped potential to do more and that was the topic of our discussion last Thursday. NATO leaders agreed at that meeting to do more. In Afghanistan, our mission will continue and with greater numbers. We will also increase our support for the anti-ISIL coalition. NATO has now become as an institution a full member of the global coalition. This doesn’t mean it will become a NATO mission or that NATO forces will engage in operations in combat, instead it will help as to coordinate better with coalition members and it is a strong symbol of our commitment to the fight against terrorism. NATO membership of the coalition will allow the alliance to take a more active role in political discussions also, better coordinating also on training and capacity building activities. We are already training Iraqi forces to defuse improvised explosive devices in Jordan and in Iraq itself and they are using that training right now in the battle for Mosul. Our AWACS aircraft will expand their role helping to improve air space management and several allies have committed air to air refueling capabilities for these AWACS. Again, I want to underscore for you what an active discussion it was last Thursday as allies stepped forward to provide for more resources, more capabilities for the anti-ISIL coalition. Of course, a vital part of this fight is the fast and efficient sharing of intelligence between allies and partners. To improve this, we are setting up a new dedicated terrorism intelligence unit within our new intelligence division. We are establishing a hub for the South at our Joint Forces Command in Naples to monitor and assess regional threats, including terrorism. And we are looking at how we can make more of our Special Operations Headquarters which already offers tailored counter-terrorism training for our allies and partners. And again, that Special Operations Headquarters has been an important focal point for discussions leading up to the meeting on last Thursday. To help coordinate all of these efforts the Secretary General is appointing a new counter-terrorism coordinator and that will be announced shortly.
The second theme of the Brussels meeting was the fair sharing of the burden of our security and the Trans-Atlantic bond. This got a lot of attention clearly and I welcome again the President, Ambassador Alli’s comment that this Assembly is on the front line of that discussion as well. Your role in this matter is extraordinarily important. The challenges we face go far beyond terrorism: instability in the South, the threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, cyber attack and of course a more assertive Russia. NATO has a dual track approach to Russia. We are strengthening our deterrence and defense but we are also engaging in meaningful dialogue through the NATO Russia Council which met three times last year in 2016 and once so far this year at the end of March. Allies do not seek to provoke a conflict with Russia but to prevent one and to preserve the peace. Taken together the challenges we face represent the most dangerous and complex security situation for a generation. That is why in 2014 at the NATO Summit in Wales NATO leaders agreed to increase investment in our defense and to make sure that investment went to the capabilities NATO allies need to maintain our security. Since then there has been significant progress and Secretary General Stoltenberg likes to underscore this fact. Since 2014 the cuts have stopped and we have begun among ourselves as an Alliance to increase spending on defense. This trend line is very important now to maintain. To make sure that nations keep up the progress and meet the commitments they made in 2014 leaders agreed last week to publish national plans every year. The plans will have three components. Again, already mentioned this morning by the President Ambassador Alli: cash, capabilities and contributions. That is how much countries are spending on defense, what capabilities they have that NATO needs and what manpower and other resources they are devoting already to NATO operations, so there are three components to that defense investment pledge and it will be incorporated in the national plans. These plans will ensure that every nation keeps up the momentum, that every nation plays its part and that burden sharing of our security… [break in audio transmission] discussed at the February Defense Ministerial meeting. We will aim to complete all the work on them and begin the discussions inside the Alliance by the end of December and then they will actually be discussed at the February Ministerial meeting.
In addition to these two main themes of burden sharing and the fight against terrorism there was a third very important meeting … measure at the meeting on Thursday. President Vujanovic of Montenegro joined us for the meeting and sat at the leaders table for the first time. In just a few days Montenegro will pass the final accession hurdle submitting its instrument of ratification for the Washington Treaty in Washington D.C. That will be on the 5th of June and officially becoming the 29th member of the NATO Alliance. We will hold a formal flag raising ceremony to welcome them on Wednesday 7th of June at the NATO Headquarters and I hope again everyone in this room will be willing to join in that celebration. It will be an historic moment for the Alliance.
This is a clear sign that the door to membership of NATO remains open to those who share our values, who meet the Alliance’s high standards and who wish to contribute to the collective security of allies and I’m glad to stress this point here in Tbilisi. NATO supports Georgia through the substantial NATO Georgia package. This has two objectives, to bolster Georgia’s self defense capabilities and to prepare it for NATO membership. The same stance, Georgia is one of our closest and most valued partners. It makes one of the largest troop contributions to our Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan and it helps us to form a deep understanding of the security situation here in the Black Sea region. Whether a country wishes to join NATO or not is entirely up to them. NATO has close partnerships with countries that choose not to join - among them Sweden, Finland and Serbia. NATO takes no position on what security arrangements the country should make, it does firmly hold that countries must choose for themselves their security arrangements. That is their right and it will remain their right.
The Brussels meeting also saw the Head of State and government unveil two memorials of very deep importance to NATO. The first was a Memorial to the Berlin Wall which Chancellor Merkel unveiled on Thursday afternoon. It remembers of course the fall of the Wall, the end of the division of Europe in 1989, 1990, 1991 that very important time period which we remember so well. The second was the so called 9/11 and Article 5 Memorial which President Trump unveiled. It of course focuses on the undying commitment of NATO allies to our mutual defense pact and our Article 5 commitments.
Last week we took another step along the path of NATO’s adaptation to a new more challenging world. We’ve come a long way but there is still a lot of work to do. Adaptation in the Alliance I have learned in my short eight months on this job is a never-ending job and one we must continue to constantly pay attention to.
We have come a long way and with your help we will continue along this road of adaptation and change and building the importance and the capacity and capabilities of the Alliance over time. So, thank you very much for your attention this morning I very much look forward to your questions.
Thank you.
