Second Meeting, Athens, 29 March 2002
As agreed in Istanbul on the 13th of February the Foreign Ministers of Bulgaria Greece, Romania and Turkey, met again today in Athens to further discuss developments in view of the NATO enlargement process. They reaffirmed their clear conviction that at the upcoming Prague Summit the Alliance should proceed with invitations in order to achieve a robust and geographically balanced enlargement.
The Ministers are persuaded that at this historic moment of reshaping European security, the inclusion of Southeastern European countries in NATO would strengthen stability and security in the Continent.
As they witnessed recently in Bucharest, the Southern Dimension of the Alliance’s enlargement is gaining momentum and support. The Ministers commended the activities of the Vilnius Group. They associated themselves with the recent Bucharest Declaration and welcomed the support for a Southern dimension of the Alliance’s enlargement. They welcomed the commitment of Hungary to support further NATO enlargement southwards with Bulgaria and Romania, thus associating with the Istanbul meeting’s joint statement.
The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Greece and Turkey, as Allied Ministers coming from a region in which NATO is actively engaged and whose future peace, security and stability is critical for Euro-Atlantic security as a whole, firmly endorse the legitimate aspiration of Romania and Bulgaria to be invited to join NATO as full fledged members in Prague 2002. Their commitment and performance as Contributors to NATO led operations through SFOR and KFOR, to all regional security activities, including the fight against terrorism and their participation to ISAF (Afghanistan) has already been remarkable.
Moreover, the two Allied Ministers, while commending the laborious efforts of Bulgaria and Romania to fulfill all necessary criteria for their future membership, underlined full support to the successful implementation of the 3rd Membership Action Plan by the two candidates. Further progress in this respect will consolidate the chances of Bulgaria and Romania to be part of the Alliance.
The Ministers believe that such efforts will definitely strengthen and further forge the Alliance’s posture in political and military fields alike; it is precisely what the Alliance is called to stand for in order to face the new threats and challenges. The Ministers reiterated their strong conviction that NATO’ s enlargement towards South East Europe would strengthen NATO’ s military capabilities and provide strategic depth to inter alia better counter terrorism and other non-military threats such as organized crime and illegal migration.
The Ministers assessed their joint activities carried out since their last meeting in Istanbul; they decided upon an initial Action Plan; it will encompass concerted actions aiming at better informing the public, involving defense cooperation and engaging civil society actors. They also decided to use all available means in order to project and underline the merits of Bulgaria and Romania as highly qualified NATO candidates and valuable assets within an enlarged Alliance.
The Ministers agreed to an ongoing cooperation until their next meeting and expressed readiness to explore all opportunities to broaden the support for the southern dimension of NATO’s enlargement.