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Министерство иностранных дел республики казахстан комитет международной информации III форум безопасности сеап

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III ФОРУМ БЕЗОПАСНОСТИ СЕАП




Газета «New Europe» (EU), 05.07.2009, NATO HEAD SAYS IT’S IMPORTANT INTERLOCUTOR FOR KAZAKHSTAN


Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the outgoing NATO Secretary General was a main guest of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) Security Forum, which was held in Sweden in 2005 and in FYROM in 2007. NATO is seeking to deepen cooperation with its partner countries in Central Asia - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The NATO partnership offers a multilateral framework for security dialogue opportunities for bilateral cooperation, which promotes transparency, builds confidence and helps address shared security challenges. At a press conference on the eve of the forum and after the plenary session he answered some important questions concerning Kazakhstan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, including those asked by the Kazinform correspondent.

The EAPC Security Forum for the first time will be held on the post-Soviet territory and Asian continent in general and will be the first large event on the territory of our country in 2009. How important is it for Kazakhstan? What place does it take among the NATO partners in Central Asia?

I do believe that both Kazakhstan and NATO influence each other. Kazakhstan’s position as an energy supplier and the political role of your President plays an important role in different areas and international organizations active in this region. I’ve just come back from the Palace of the President. We did not only discuss the Central Asian region but the Middle East Region as well.  We discussed nonprofit operations; touched upon the uranium issues, nuclear program, which are well of course in concern of international policymakers. We discussed the role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that is very important as well. It also will be discussed at the seminars NATO and Kazakhstan are organizing tomorrow. There’s no direct link between the two organizations but I consider the OSCE as a relevant organisation for regional security.

With regard to the current level of cooperation between our country and NATO I would say that is done very well. I know that your President Nursultan Nazarbayev has always been ambitious about cooperation between Kazakhstan and NATO. So I can say we have a serious political dialogue, we have a practical cooperation and Kazakhstan is very helpful to NATO as far as the lines of communication within the operation in Afghanistan are concerned. We have an Individual Partnership Action Plan which we are going to discuss. So I think as a whole I am very positive about this cooperation.

Kazakhstan will head the OSCE next year. Have you any advice for Kazakhstan in relation to this post and particularly cooperation between NATO and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe?

So, first of all let me congratulate Kazakhstan because I think in this regard this is a milestone for Kazakhstan that is going to be the chairman of the OSCE in 2010. I can only say from my own experience that it is a complicated job. It is a big organisation where unfortunately are too many conflicts and the chairman-in-office will have to try to find resolution. I could mention many of them: Nagorno-Karabakh where the OSCE Minsk Group plays a big role as a mediator, and we have a lot of unfinished business after the crisis in Georgia, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and the Caucasus. But I do think that Kazakhstan is in a good position to mediate and to tackle all these frozen conflicts. So I wish Kazakhstan and the Kazakhstan leadership all the very best. It is a difficult job and I am quite sure Kazakhstan is able to do it very well.

As you know new American leadership and President Barack Obama are launching several initiatives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East region. In this regard is NATO strategy going to be reviewed in order to achieve more positive outcomes in these regions?

Let me focus on let’s say the boundary question which is relevant to NATO. We see President  Obama as the US new president who has been very proactive as far as our military operation in Afghanistan is concerned. That’s he intends to do - do very favorable and positive actions by eventualising the summit of NATO. There is our new commander, who as you know, commands both US and NATO forces. There is a review going on and NATO is involved in that review. So I do think that this pro-activity showed by President Obama is reflected in the NATO’s lines and it also reflected in the position taken by Obama as far as Afghanistan is concerned. On Iraq I can only tell that NATO’s activities in Iraq are focused as you know on the NATO’s training mission in Iraq. We are training the Iraq escorting forces in a successful NATO training mission including the mission with the Italian Carabinieri. And since it is interesting to know that one of the decisions made at the summit in April of this year is that NATO is going to have a training mission in Afghanistan, which like in Iraq will be in combination with American friends. So also in Afghanistan we are starting up our activity as far as the least is concerned. You know that NATO does not have any ambitions and I think should never have any ambitions to involve itself into the Middle East process.

There is an opinion that the security in the central part of Eurasia should be based not so much on the military control, but on economic pragmatism. It will help to prevent future traps. Could you brief about other spheres of cooperation beyond military cooperation?

Let me mention the so called Virtual Silk Highway computer networking project establishing high speed internet connectivity which I think is one of the most successful programs in this sense. Another sphere is a political dialogue in general and, finally civil emergency planning. We are preparing a training exercise in Almaty this year in consequence management -”What will you do if there’s a disaster?”  it may be a natural disaster. And I think we have excellent interlocutors for NATO and I am sure that the Kazakh authorities will also consider NATO as an interlocutor for Kazakhstan. So the cooperation extends to many many areas. And I think we should be more ambitious and we can always be more ambitious and Kazakhstan is the important player in the region and beyond.