Bucharest meeting gave clear signal re Afghanistan - Estonian defmin

04.04.2008

This, the minister said on Friday, is shown by the fact that more than ten new and old member states of the alliance informed about their decision to increase their contribution to the operations.

"The French decision to send a battalion size unit to Afghanistan is just one example of this," Aaviksoo said.

The minister said that Estonia's contribution to the NATO security assistance force in Afghanistan is remarkable already now.

"In terms of contribution per resident we're among the top five contributors, and in order to strengthen the operation we've decided to send also a mortar unit to Afghanistan," he said.

Aaviksoo singled out as very important the continued desire of allies to together find solutions for bridging the shortfalls in key capabilities, naming as an example the joint Anglo-French initiative to improve the helicopter airlift capacity.

"The approach whereby strengths are consolidated in the name of a common goal allows also small countries to participate as equal partners," he said.

A lot of attention was given at the meeting to NATO's readiness to tackle such challenges of the 21st century as energy security and cyber security, he said.

For the sake of advancement of the process the decision is important to start providing member states with regular surveys on the development of cyber defense, he said.

A new impulse for the modernization of NATO came from Britain, which made a proposal to stage a separate seminar for defense ministers on how to make the alliance more modern, said Aaviksoo.

Tallinn newsroom, +372 610 8861, sise@bns.ee