The Riga Summit successfully delivered the first step towards deepened NATO relationships with existing partners, and others who contribute militarily, politically or in other ways to NATO-led operations. The UK strongly supports this initiative, which will enable non-NATO countries such as Australia and Japan, who are not members of the existing partnerships, to discuss existing and future operations with NATO in a flexible, transparent and pragmatic manner, and will give them access to partnership tools currently available only to existing partners.  This move was taken a step further at the Summit in Bucharest, which recognised the value of developing relations with countries of this kind in ways which reflect their own preferences.

 

The UK believes this flexible approach will also benefit the dialogue and practical co-operation between all NATO's current partners, as well as being an important part of NATO’s wider transformation. Contributions by many non-NATO countries to the Alliance’s missions and operations from Kosovo to Afghanistan show the importance of strengthening and widening NATO’s partnerships.

 

The UK has been a strong supporter of the NATO Training Co-operation Initiative which was also launched at Riga. NATO pledged to share its training expertise with partners from the broader region of the Middle East by expanding partner participation in existing NATO training and education programmes, establishing a Middle East faculty at the NATO Defence College and, in the future, supporting the possible establishment of a Security Co-operation Centre in the region.