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NATO Summit

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords for their support, in parts—in particular the noble Lord, Lord Garden—and for highlighting, rightly, the limitations. In response to the questions raised, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Astor, it is important to say that this clearly does not go far enough. However, in our attempts to persuade our NATO allies, our policy is not to point the finger and criticise in public, but to recognise and show appreciation for those countries that have moved in the direction we wish to see, and firmly but privately to make the points to those countries that we believe should go further. We welcome the willingness of those countries that have removed caveats and agreed to provide further resources, while we continue to make the case firmly for the additional resources to be provided to NATO commanders to do the job that they are tasked with doing on behalf of the international community in Afghanistan. I was asked about such matters as the definition of an emergency. These are issues that we need clarification on. As noble Lords know, they are important to NATO commanders in terms of the effectiveness of operations. Such clarity is required. As I said in repeating the Statement, we need to recognise that those countries, having made certain commitments, need to go back and confirm exactly what those commitments are. However, our focus is to stress the importance of ensuring the greatest possible operational effectiveness, taking into account the significant challenge that we recognise the international community is up against in Afghanistan. That is our policy. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Garden, when he says that it is important for us, while highlighting the importance of a reserve into the south, not to lose focus on the progress that has been made in other regions within the country. We need a whole-country approach. That is our strategy. We have seen real progress within Afghanistan because of the effectiveness of the strategy that we are taking, but there is no doubt that, as we have described, there is a shortfall between what NATO commanders have said that they need to pursue this strategy and what countries have, to date, committed. However, that gap has got significantly smaller as a result of the Riga summit, and that is progress. The noble Lord, Lord Garden, asked about our position on national caveats. We should not confuse the positions, about which I have been asked many times in this House, of our sovereign control over our troops and the caveats on the difference in rules of engagement—what troops are actually allowed to do within NATO operations and the difficulties that commanders face when rules of engagement are significantly different among the coalition partners. I was asked a number of questions about our position on Serbia and what has changed our policy. This reflects the pressure in terms of the view of the whole community, which we have recognised. The decision to grant Partnership for Peace status to Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro follows the achievements of Albania, Croatia and Macedonia in moving towards full NATO membership, and marks further progress on the region’s Euro-Atlantic path. We remain firmly committed to this work and have not abandoned the points relating to conditionality and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The progress on full ICTY co-operation in Serbia remains essential. We expect that the NATO communiqué will make it clear that NATO will expect Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to co-operate fully with the ICTY and closely monitor their respective efforts in this regard. I believe that the message that it sends is really an opportunity for Serbia to move towards closer Euro-Atlantic contribution and co-operation. I was asked a number of other points for which I do not have full details. I will follow them up and, where I can do so, I will write to noble Lords with an answer.