North Atlantic Cooperation Council communique. (includes related article) (Transcript)

Statement issued following the Ministerial Meeting of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC), Istanbul, Turkey, June 10, 1994.

1. We, the Foreign Ministers and Representatives of the member countries of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC), have met today in Istanbul for our seventh meeting since the inauguration of our Council on 20 December 1991. We continued our consultations on regional conflicts and tensions affecting security in our area. We reviewed the implementation of the Partnership for Peace initiative, launched by NATO Heads of State and Government at their meeting in Brussels on 10 January of this year, and our broadening cooperation. Through increasingly close cooperation and joint efforts we will be able to strengthen security and stability throughout our area.

2. Finland, Slovenia, and Sweden, having joined the Partnership for Peace, participated in the deliberations on PfP issues and attended the rest of the meeting as observers.

3. We are pleased by the progress made in the implementation of our NACC Work Plan for Dialogue, Partnership and Cooperation for 1994, which we agreed at our meeting last December. Our cooperation in many areas is already firmly established and has developed its own momentum. We will continue with the broad agenda of our NACC activities. Cooperation on political and security related issues will remain a key activity. We shall intensify our regular political consultations and continue our practical cooperation activities, using the mechanisms established in the frame-work of the NACC.

4. We welcome the establishment of the Partnership for Peace and fully support the principles on which it is founded. This important and farreaching partnership initiative signifies the extension of our cooperation in this Council, taking into account the interests and capacities of the individual partner countries. Twenty countries have already joined the Partnership for Peace. We look forward to others joining, including other CSCE states which are not members of the NACC and which are able and willing to contribute to this programme.

5. The objective of the Partnership is to enhance security and stability in the whole of Europe. The Partnership will transform the relations between NATO and participating states and adapt them further to the new conditions in Europe. Cooperation will include the necessary transparency and not be directed against any other country. Partnership for Peace is based on the commitment to democratic principles and human rights, to the preservation of democratic societies, their freedom from coercion and intimidation and the maintenance of the principles of international law. Central obligations of the Partnership for Peace, already undertaken in the UN Charter, include respect for sovereignty and existing borders, settlement of disputes by peaceful means and refraining from the …