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NATO, the Mediterranean and the Middle East: the Successor Generation

About the event:

Read Deputy Secretary General Alessandro Minuto Rizzo's Keynote Address

What can NATO offer the Mediterranean and Middle East? What does the region want from NATO? Is NATO expertise a resource which the Middle East and North Africa might draw upon? How will NATO’s new roles in the Middle East – such as providing training in Iraq – impact on the Mediterranean Dialogue?

This conference examined NATO's relations with the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the light of the Istanbul Co-operation Initiative agreed at the Istanbul Summit in 2004 and in light of the Alliance's new missions in the region.

Issues addressed included:

• Implementing the Istanbul Co-operation Initiative
• Evolving US, European and Mediterranean Debates on Mediterranean Security
• NATO Expertise – a Resource for the Region?
• Armed Forces Reform and Civil-Military Relations
• New Missions and New Roles for NATO in the Middle East
• Addressing Public Opinion in the Mediterranean and Middle East
• Next Steps for the NATO Mediterranean Dialogue
• Prospects for a NATO-GCC Dialogue

The conference built on the success of RUSI's two earlier conferences on NATO & Mediterranean Security, which in 2002 focused on “soft” security issues such as political stability, threat perceptions, economic co-operation and in 2003 analysed the practical steps that NATO and its partners can take to help develop the initiative. The 2004 conference differrf from preceding events in that one of its main objectives was to expose the 'successor generation' in the fields of policy-making, business and the media from the seven Partner countries to the NATO Mediterranean Dialogue at an early stage in their careers.

The conference will be attended by senior officials, diplomats, military officers, academics and the media from NATO member countries and the non-NATO Partner Countries. In addition, each of the seven Partner Countries will be represented by two specially-invited members of the 'successor generation' as part of NATO’s efforts to engage public opinion in the region.