John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, I did take the opportunity that the ministerial roundtables provided to also have a series of bilateral meetings about the future direction of ISAF, including with the US Secretary of Defence, Dr Gates, and my ministerial counterparts from Canada, New Zealand as well as the Netherlands, who are our partners in Oruzgan province. I also met with the newly appointed defence secretary for the United Kingdom, Bob Ainsworth, the Afghan Minister for Defence, General Wardak, as well as Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the NATO Secretary General, with whom I was able to discuss NATO’s current thinking on Afghanistan.