Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister inform the House about the NATO summit held in Riga overnight and the implications for Australian forces in Afghanistan?

Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Lindsay for her interest in this important event. As she said in her question, the NATO leaders met in Riga in Latvia last night. During that meeting, which normally is not something Australia would focus on, there were two particular issues and outcomes which were, in my view, very favourable to Australia. The first was that this meeting considered the proposal promoted by the Secretary-General of NATO, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, that a contact group of like-minded countries that can work with NATO in different operations outside of the transatlantic sphere should be established. The NATO summit decided to proceed with that proposal. In that contact group is Australia; it will also include countries like Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

This is an important development because, when consideration is given to the great global struggles that we all have to confront, it is important that the Western alliance and Western interests are understood to mean more than just transatlantic interests and the transatlantic alliance. It is important in that context to understand the importance of Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and other countries in the broad international effort against, for example, terrorism. The fact that Australian troops participate in Afghanistan with NATO—indeed, working side by side with a NATO country, the Netherlands—is an illustration of that point. So I am delighted to see this relationship with NATO move forward. It was something that was discussed at some length during my visit to the North Atlantic Council earlier this year.

Secondly, and very importantly—and this was also an issue discussed during my meeting with the North Atlantic Council recently—some of the caveats which limit the activities of some of the NATO forces in Afghanistan have been, if not removed, certainly reduced. This is important because there are a number of countries, and importantly Australia is one, which have troops in southern Afghanistan. Other countries which participate in Afghanistan under the umbrella of NATO have caveats on their troops not moving into the southern part of the country and other restrictions over and above that. This was an issue that I raised during the North Atlantic Council meeting earlier this year that I referred to because, if those caveats are lifted, that obviously means that there are foreign forces that can provide more support for Australia, as well as countries like Canada, the Netherlands, the UK and obviously America, than would otherwise be the case.

We do not have the full details on the progress that has been made, but we know some progress has been made, and I am delighted that the NATO summit has had that degree of success. I also note that the Dutch Prime Minister, Mr Balkenende, in his speech to the summit specifically acknowledged the contribution of ‘courageous non-NATO allies like Australia’. I appreciate very much the sentiment that was expressed by that fine Prime Minister of the Netherlands.