The Washington summit has been a turning point in Nato's history, it is so that Nato is building for the future and that we are making the alliance fit a much broader spectrum of security tasks for the 21st century. The new strategic concept will give Nato the ability to shape the international security agenda. The process of open door, the enlargement of the Alliance, will remain a vital part of Nato's evolution. We will help the candidate countries to prepare more actively for the day when they will be ready to join us.

We also set out an agenda for the further development of the European security and defence identity that will complete the work following from our decisions that were taken in Berlin in the summer of 1996. We also set out a perspective as to how Nato and the European Union can work together.

The Washington summit showed after 5 weeks of Operation Allied Force that Nato is more united and is more determined than ever. Our partners in the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council joined us in Washington. The 7 countries neighbouring Yugoslavia also gave us their full support. They are giving us a good deal of practical support, as you know, for instance overflight rights, transit rights and agreeing to host our forces on their territories. But of course we are also helping them. Our troops are helping them to deal with the refugee crisis. Nato countries are providing financial and other support, and Nato has reassured that it would not allow to be threatened or attacked by Yugoslav. The second reason why I am confident that we will prevail is that we have clear objectives which alone can bring a lasting peace to the region. We know that anything else would represent merely a temporary and untenable outcome. At the same time Nato is not only interested - and I would like to underline this again - in winning the conflict, we also want to build a lasting peace and lasting stability on the region that will follow it.

We will establish a consultative forum to discuss security issues with the countries of the region. We will promote regional cooperation with the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council and we also welcome the proposals of the European Union to convene a conference on a stability pact for the south east of Europe. The World Bank the IMF and the G7 also stand ready to offer their financial help and practical advice to the countries of this region.

The Serbian people can also be part of this vision if they so wish. Our quarrel is not with them but with the government of Milosevic. I would like to insist that we will offer them such an alternative and I hope that the people of Serbia will grasp it.

At the Washington Summit we decided to intensify the air campaign. At the same time, as you know, we are continuing to deal with the humanitarian situation. Our forces continue to work in very close relationship with UNHCR and with all the international agencies. Milosevic can end our air campaign only by accepting the key objectives of the international community. Nato has come back from Washington in a united and in a very strong position. We will translate this unity and this strength into concrete achievements and we will not let up in our pressure until Kosovo is at peace and the region can look to a brighter future according to the scheme that we are working on.

QUESTION: There is obviously a flurry of diplomatic activity now and in coming days, do you see anything at all in that that would pass for promising?

SECRETARY GENERAL: From Washington comes two lines of action, very clear: one is from the military point of view, unity and determination on the military line; and also all the possible movements that are taking place now in the diplomatic field. We have said from the very beginning that this military campaign had an end and an end towards a diplomatic end.

house arrests of some important military people. There are signs that things are moving, let's hope they are moving in the right direction and in the coming weeks we may have some positive news.

QUESTION: Concerning the future military presence in Kosovo which would allow the refugees to return, does it have to be NATO-led, having a NATO core, a UN mandate or what, please?

SECRETARY GENERAL: In Bosnia, we have NATO countries, non-NATO countries, Russia, Ukraine etc. and it is working to my mind very efficiently. We stopped a war, we are able to guarantee the environment of security there. That could be a model in which we can construct the architecture of the international presence in Kosovo also.

QUESTION:

Secretary General, when you say that the people of Serbia are welcome to join democratic nations of Europe and to be part of the vision for the next century and so on, to a large extent to say that to people in this room you are preaching really to the converted, to most organisations represented here but are you at all satisfied that this message is getting through to

the people of Serbia themselves?

SECRETARY GENERAL: I would like to emphasise in a very important manner that this message of NATO, of the European Union, of the OECE, of NGOs, of so many people that we want a future for the Balkans and in that future for the Balkans Serbia should have a place but of course a Serbia which is different to the Serbia of today, a Serbia which is democratic, that Serbia is an important country for the region, for the stability of the region, and should have a role to play.

QUESTION: Is there any country over there who really wants to have an independent Kosovo except Albania and what are their main worries - Bulgaria, Macedonia, whatever?

SECRETARY GENERAL: You are talking about Bulgaria, Romania, those type of countries. They are countries that are of the same religion as Serbia, they have a common history that goes time ago but they are absolutely determined to see that the situation that has been created by Milosevic never repeats again. One of the ideas that they have very rooted in their hearts and in their minds is that in that part of Europe borders should not be changed.

QUESTION: What NATO has done already to get the relevant information to bring people to justice in Yugoslavia and what you plan to do in the future?

SECRETARY GENERAL: What NATO as such collectively can do is what countries that belong to NATO can do. As you know, NATO does not have intelligence of its own, the intelligence that NATO has is the intelligence provided by the countries, therefore the individual NATO countries can contribute very much and I know that they are already contributing very much.