South Caucasus NATO's Geographical Priority

The purpose of the Armenia-NATO Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) is to trace new aspects of NATO Partnership policy, specific for this stage of transformation of the Alliance and its development of relations with South Caucasus countries. We draw a perspective of IPAP as a toll of strengthening security and stability in the South Caucasus region. One more task is to show the connection of IPAP implementation process with the policies carried on by the EU, OSCE and the standards imposed by the Council of Europe on Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. NATO's partnership policy is meant for 10 years. I must stress that the challenges to Euro-Atlantic security are changing; threats are increasingly coming from the periphery to the Euro-Atlantic area. In this view NATO highlights efficient cooperation for stability and security that depends both on domestic reform and wide economic cooperation.

Another purpose of the Partnership policy is political dialogue and practical cooperation enhanced through the IPAP process. The reforms promote democratic values and transformation and lay the foundation for the modern defense systems. Participation in NATO-led operation, interoperability between Partner and Allies as well as the enlargement of the NATO's Open Door Policy also play an important role.

South Caucasus states appear as the geographical priorities based upon the communiqué of the NATO summit in Istanbul. As you know in July 2005 Armenia submitted its Individual Partnership Action Plan and in December discussions started in the "26+1" format. We entered a qualitatively new enhanced political dialogue through IPAP leading to domestic reform, assessing reform progress and facilitating mote targeted allied assistance. The program includes defense reform, defense institution building and fight against terrorism. The program also provides for joint operations, exercises and trainings, border security, consequence management and management of spreading of small arms and man-portable air defense systems. Integration into the Partnership for Peace program, civilian participation in developing defense and security policies, legislative and juridical oversight, arrangements and procedures to access security risks and national defense requirements, compliance with internationally accepted norms, effective and transparent financial, planning and resource allocation procedures as well as effective management of defense spending are essential for the South Caucasus states.

The key security aspects are political issues including the Euro-Atlantic integration of the South Caucasian states, the integration with EU and NATO, the national security concept, national defense strategy and foreign policy goals. It's essential to develop practical regional cooperation among the partners from the South Caucasus and the Black Sea region as well as with Russia.

One of the principal directions is combating terrorism. We also highlight struggle against corruption and bringing of the national legislation in line with international standards, ratification of relevant CoE conventions (e.g. social chapter, national minorities). The IPAP also provides for steps towards economic reforms including remuneration system for public servants, management of public enterprises, privatization process, state procurement process, statistical records for tax collection, foreign trade and balance payments statistics, antimonopoly legislation and competition policy.

NATO attaches importance to a peaceful settlement of conflicts. We consider that the leading role in the peaceful conflict resolution policy belongs to the OSCE and U.N. The measures include determination of status of autonomies, return of refugees and IDP's rehabilitation of conflict zones and complementarity of actions of international organizations in Georgia. NATO partnership policy is developing and covering new regions as well as setting new priorities with a strategic goal of enhancing security and stability. South Caucasus was declared NATO's geographical priority. New partnership tools and schemes of cooperation including the IPAP are introduced well adjusting them to already existing ones and making a good use of both. Joining by Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan of the IPAP process is a promising step towards promoting regional as well as Euro-Atlantic security.