Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a great pleasure to welcome you here to Reykjavik.

NATO is the symbol of unity and cooperation in our common effort, to ensure peace and security, in Europe and beyond.

All of us, have to shoulder the responsibility for defending and promoting democracy and freedom for future generations. Your nations know from bitter and recent experience that freedom is not abstract, on the contrary, it is manifested in every aspect of daily life.  At the same time freedom in not given, its maintenance demands vigilance, hard work and economic sacrifice.

Iceland is a founding member of the Alliance and this membership is one of the most important pillars in our foreign and defence policy, along with our Bilateral Defence agreement with the United States.   

The ongoing transformation of the Alliance is necessary both to meet new threats, like international terrorism, and to streamline the work of an enlarged Alliance of 26 member states. 

Very few predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact and the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 were unexpected.  This demonstrates the continuous need to adapt the Alliance to a changing security environment.

NATO is able to ensure collective defence, collective crisis management and the transfer of stability.  It has a successful track record both in the Balkans and Afghanistan and now most recently with the NATO Training Mission in Iraq.  Because of our missions and activities in these regions, we have brought greater security and increased stability to a large number of people outside the member states. 

For this purpose the Icelandic government has decided to contribute personnel, strategic airlift and funds to the different Alliance missions. 

 Iceland provided a commander for the Kabul International Airport on behalf of ISAF when the German Air Force departed on 1 June 2004 until the Turkish Air Force took over the command 31 January 2005. Before Kabul there was an Icelandic commander and some personnel at the Pristina Airport in Kosovo.

Preparation is now under way to participate in Provincial Reconstruction Teams in northern Afghanistan, together with Norway and Finland, and in western Afghanistan, with Lithuania, Latvia and Denmark. 

Iceland’s contribution in each area will take the form of two specially equipped off-road vehicles and a crew of 8-9 people. In this way, Iceland will become a participant in the organisation and implementation of the reconstruction work in Afghanistan.

Among other things, members of the reconstruction teams will travel around, survey the situation in urban and rural areas and submit proposals for improvements to the appropriate aid and other international organisations.  In the areas where the Icelandic peacekeepers will be operating communications are extremely difficult, and Icelandic experience should therefore prove useful.

The positive development we are seeing now in Afghanistan is happening in direct conjunction with the growing activities of the NATO in the country.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The greatest threat to our security today is the danger of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of rogue governments, irresponsible states, and terrorists.  But with close co-operation among the member states of NATO we can reduce or avert this threat.  NATO is, and will continue to be, the cornerstone of the security and defence of its member states. In my view this is particularly true of the new member states, which place their trust in the Alliance as regards security, as the Alliance embodies the trans-Atlantic link.

 A prosperous Europe, at peace in security, isn’t something we can take for granted; we all have to work for it.

Finally I would like to restate my welcome to you and I hope that you will have an enjoyable stay here in Reykjavik.