No.18. (06/06/03)

Press Statements by the President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly
Prague, 28 May 2003

The President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Congressman Doug Bereuter (Nebraska), expressed his profound sadness and shock on Wednesday at the death of 62 Spanish peacekeepers and 12 Ukrainian crew members after their plane crashed in Turkey. These men gave their lives in the pursuit of peace. My heartfelt sympathies go out to their families, Bereuter said in a statement. The NATO PA president, on behalf of the Assembly, also extended his condolences to both the Spanish and Ukrainian governments. The Ukrainian Yak-42 was bringing the peacekeepers home from Afghanistan when it hit a mountain near the Black Sea resort of Trabzon when the pilot tried to land in heavy fog in order to refuel. NATO takes over the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan this summer.

Statement on the Middle East

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly welcomes the recent developments in the Middle East and, in particular, the Palestinian Authority and Israeli government's acceptance of the Road Map to peace charted by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia. The Assembly unanimously considers these decisions an important step towards the goal of two states living alongside each other in peace and security. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly encourages the two sides to begin to move ahead towards implementation of the plan in a spirit of goodwill, co-operation and mutual respect.

NATO PA President calls on NATO countries to honour commitments

Addressing the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA) on the final session of its 5-day spring meeting in Prague today the President of the NATO PA Congressman Doug Bereuter (Rep. Nebraska) stressed the collective defence of the members of the North Atlantic Alliance must remain its primary purpose.

"We must remain committed to our common defence" said Bereuter. In the course of his speech he referred to the effects on NATO and the transatlantic alliance of the Iraq crisis, but he said he felt that rather than a total transatlantic dispute it was also a dispute between some European countries and the countries which led the coalition in military action in Iraq. He warned that there are significant and growing differences in attitude and perception between the United States and many of its NATO allies and that if left unaddressed it would "erode the solidarity and cohesion of the Alliance" which currently faced numerous threats to its peace and stability. He welcomed the agreement within the UN Security Council last week to lift sanctions which would eventually allow Iraq to join the world economy.

He said that "NATO's support in Iraq, coupled with its growing role in Afghanistan, signals NATO's willingness to take on out-of-area operations, and more importantly, its vital role in the global war on terrorism." He praised Alliance nations, and particularly France, for its willingness to participate in the NATO Response Force (NRF) which will aim at rapid deployment of Alliance forces to apply decisive power wherever they are needed.

Turning to Afghanistan, Bereuter said the NRF and commitments to enhance NATO's capabilities, pledged at the NATO Prague summit in November 2002, "must be implemented very soon." The NRF will give NATO a high-end expeditionary capability to perform all kinds of missions for peace, security, and stability in the future," he said. Referring to the threats posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and terrorist states, he declared that "no nation alone can adequately address these threats to our security. We need an international framework. In this effort Europe and the US must be partners and not rivals or counterweights."

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(The Newsletters do not in any way represent the official opinion of the Hungarian National Assembly.)