DEFENSE SECRETARY HAGEL CALLS NATO "AN ANCHOR OF SECURITY FOR THE WORLD"

 

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT 

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel receives the Atlantic Council's 2014 Distinguished International Leadership Award from Brent Scowcroft, chairman of the Atlantic Council International Advisory Board, during an awards ceremony and dinner at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, April 30, 2014. DOD photo by Glenn Fawcett. 

Hagel Emphasizes NATO’s Importance to World Security
By Claudette Roulo
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 1, 2014 – On a night in which the Atlantic Council honored Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, the secretary called NATO an anchor of security for the world.

After receiving the council’s Distinguished International Leadership Award here last night, Hagel said he's been privileged and fortunate to have lived at such a spectacular time in world history. While this time is not without its problems and new threats emerge daily, he said, the transatlantic alliance embodied by NATO has served as a bulwark for peace and security.

"I know of no anchor of security more important to keeping peace in the world since World War II than NATO," Hagel said.

NATO has been instrumental to averting problems like those that occurred in the first 50 years of the 20th century, the defense secretary said. "Problems? Yes. Still humanitarian disasters? Yes. Conflicts? Yes. But overall, it's been a pretty successful last 60 years because of this alliance."

And though all of the world's problems haven't yet been solved, he said, the nations of the world have built platforms, abilities and alliances to work together in common purpose to address these challenges together.

"And that, fundamentally, was the point of NATO: knitting together a strong transatlantic alliance after World War II," Hagel said.

Today's accelerated rate of change and shift is unprecedented in the history of man, the defense secretary noted. But, he said, the rapid pace of change demonstrates that the groundwork laid more than 60 years ago is paying dividends.

"Wasn't that the point behind all of this effort that our great leaders came to and agreed upon after World War II -- to, in fact, give people of the world opportunities, freedom? That is directly connected to security and continuity and stability," Hagel said.

And while that hard work is paying off, he said, it also brings new complications.
"Therein,” he said, “lies the essence of alliances -- alliances of common purpose. … We probably won't always agree on issues, but on the end result and the purpose of an alliance, the purpose of [governance], the purpose of organized society remains the same."

After World War II, the great leaders of the era came together to form a lasting alliance because the world had had enough war, Hagel noted. But after extended periods of conflict, nations tend to look inward, he cautioned, and now the world runs the risk of again becoming captive to that kind of inward thinking, the defense secretary said.

"I don't think we're there," he said, "but it's going to require continued focused strong, steady, wise [and] engaged leadership with the world, with each other. … This is not a time to retreat. This is not a time to pull back."
NATO and organizations like it allow nations to engage peacefully with each other, even when the world remains dangerous, Hagel said.

"If there was ever a time in history where we have the tools, where we have the capacity, where we have the institutions to engage and fix the problems, it is now," the defense secretary said.

SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS AT THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

Remarks at the Atlantic Council's "Toward a Europe Whole and Free" Conference

Remarks

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Washington, DC

April 29, 2014

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So after that I thought I’d just stand up and say, “I accept the nomination.” (Laughter.) Fred, thank you very, very much – very, very generous comments.

Thank you all for the privilege of sharing some thoughts with you at this both timely and very, very important gathering. It’s my privilege to be able to be here, and I’m particularly happy to be here with so many of my colleagues, both our foreign ministers and defense ministers who are here. We had a chance to chat briefly out there. We have been meeting regularly along the trail, and I have come to admire and respect each of them for the clarity of their vision and for the way in which they have been really prescient on many of these issues.

I love the new digs and thank all those who are responsible for that. And also, Fred, thanks so much for your leadership and for the tremendous work that is being done at the Atlantic Council lately, the success of this particular conference but also the work, the groundwork you’ve been laying, and the focus that you have had on the criticality of the NATO relationship, the European relationship, which, as we know, thinking back to comments of the near past about Old Europe and New Europe and other times things that have been floating out there over these last years, this discussion is even more timely and relevant.

This year marks a number of different milestones that are really worth remembering, obviously beginning with the fact that it is 65 years since Secretary of State Dean Acheson and his European counterparts came together to sign the North Atlantic Treaty. And it’s been 25 years, amazingly, since the fall of the Berlin Wall. And that wall, as we all know too well, symbolically and literally divided East and West and Europe.

It’s been 15 years, and 10 years, and 5 years since then that NATO has welcomed new partners into the post-Cold War era. And as we have expanded as an organization, as NATO has expanded as an organization, I think it’s safe to say we have also expanded democracy, prosperity, and stability in Europe, and we have opened new opportunities in order to be able to advance security even further, and we have spurred economic growth around the globe.
Year after year, importantly, NATO’s newest members have proven their mettle in ways that we hoped for but necessarily weren’t able to predict with certainty. And so today I can tell you that I’ve seen it firsthand. Governor Huntsman and others have had occasion to travel, and we know what has been achieved in Afghanistan, where our allies in Central and Eastern Europe have served alongside us and others with distinction – on occasion not just making a sacrifice, but asking their young soldiers to join in making the ultimate sacrifice. And that perhaps more than anything else can define an alliance.

In addition, over the decades-long history, I think NATO, without any question, has done more to promote security, more to promote prosperity, and more to promote freedom than any other alliance in human history.

But today it serves us well to remember the words of President Eisenhower, who said about NATO when he was talking to our NATO allies, he said, “We can take satisfaction from the past, but no complacency in the present.”

As we come together then to reflect on 65 years of partnership, perseverance, and protection, we also have to take a look – a hard, cold, sober look – at the clear threats that regrettably still exist – not because of some inherent continuous push over these last years, but frankly, because of a fairly, it appears, uniquely personally driven set of choices that are being made.
And after two decades of focusing primarily on our expeditionary missions, the crisis in Ukraine now calls us back to the role that this alliance was originally created to perform, and that is to defend alliance territory and advance transatlantic security.

The events in Ukraine are a wake-up call. Our European Allies have spent more than 20 years with us working to integrate Russia into the Euro-Atlantic community. It is not as if we really haven’t bent over backwards to try to set a new course in the post-Cold War era. And so we’ve pursued serious bilateral engagement. We invited Russians to join organizations like the WTO, the NATO-Russia Council. But what Russia’s actions in Ukraine tell us is that today Putin’s Russia is playing by a different set of rules. And through its occupation of Crimea and its subsequent destabilization of Eastern Ukraine, Russia seeks to change the security landscape of Eastern and Central Europe.

So we find ourselves in a defining moment for our transatlantic alliance, and nobody should mistake that. And we are prepared to do what we need to do, and to go the distance, to uphold that alliance. Our strength will come from our unity. And the strength of our alliance always has come from our unity over the course of the 65 years.

So together, we have to push back against those who want to try to change sovereign borders by force.

Together, we have to support those who simply want to try to live as we do or as others do. I remember being in Kyiv and a man came up to me near the Maidan and said to me. “You know, I just came back from Australia, and I had to come back here and I have to be part of this, and I have to work so that people here could live the way I saw people living in Australia.” In today’s era of mobile devices and smartphones, everybody is in touch with everybody all of the time. And that sense of aspiration and hope and possibility is something that fills the imaginations of young people all around the planet.

So together, we have to support those folks who want to live free, making their choices about their own future. Together, we have to continue our strong support for Ukraine. And we can do that through economic assistance and we can do it through support for free and fair elections, for constitutional reform, for anti-corruption and for demobilization efforts.

And most important, together, we have to make it absolutely clear to the Kremlin that NATO territory is inviolable. We will defend every single piece of it. Article 5 of the NATO Treaty must mean something, and our allies on the front lines need and deserve no less.

Now, obviously, there have to be consequences for those who want to put to test what has been the norm of international relations and the goal, if you will, of international behavior ever since World War II.

Two weeks ago, I traveled to Geneva with my counterparts from Russia, from the EU, and from Ukraine. We agreed on a number of steps that needed to be taken in order to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine. I will tell you we had a very candid conversation, and Foreign Minister Lavrov agreed with all of us that we needed to be reciprocal in the steps that we need to take; both sides needed to do things in order to move forward.
Well, I will tell you that I was that afternoon directly in touch with Prime Minister Yatsenyuk and gave him the full download on those things that were legitimate expectations out of that, and he went to work immediately – immediately.

And so it was that from day one, Ukraine undertook to implement both the spirit and the substance of what was laid out in Geneva. He immediately agreed to help to vacate buildings, and he set out to do so, and they did vacate some buildings. They immediately began to remove barricades from the Maidan. Even now in the last 24 hours or so, they’ve vacated an entire building in the Maidan, because that was a specific complaint of Russia.

They proposed a specific amnesty bill in the legislature in order to follow through on the amnesty for protestors so that they could leave buildings with a sense of security about the justice system. They withheld their legitimate right to use their power of the state to remove people from buildings; instead stood back and canceled their CT operation over the course of the Easter weekend.

They actually took a trip – the prime minister himself – out to the region to indicate a willingness to listen to people in order to shape the constitutional reform, and in every respect began to open up the dialogues which even today they are pursuing throughout the region in order to discuss constitutional reform. That’s what Ukraine did starting on day one.

Meanwhile, I have to say to you, not one single step has been taken by Russia in any public way that seriously attempts to live by the spirit or the law of what was signed in that agreement. They have not announced publicly to their people that they need to come out of the buildings. They haven’t engaged with the OSCE in order to negotiate people out of the buildings. Every time you have a conversation, it’s pointing the finger at what the Ukrainians haven’t done, without even tallying up what they have done or acknowledging their own zero in the column with respect to what they have undertaken.

In fact, it’s fair to say they have escalated the crisis even further. There is strong evidence that I laid out several days ago of the degree to which Russian engagement exists directly in the east and has been building up over some period of time. Yet, what do we hear, regrettably? What we hear are the outrageous claims from certain people that the CIA somehow invented the internet in order to control the world, or that the forces occupying buildings, armed to the teeth, all wearing brand new military uniforms with the same lack of insignia, with the same faces in some cases of people who were identified as being in Crimea and in Georgia – they somehow want to assert to people that these people, moving in disciplined military formation to take over buildings and then bring the local separatists in to occupy the building while they move on to another building in an orderly, absolutely discernable, trackable fashion – they assert that these people are merely local activists seeking to exercise their legitimate rights.

As we have made clear, those kinds of claims are absurd. They defy any common sense. They defy the facts. And worse, they’re an indicator of the disingenuous dissembling, the policy of complete fiction that is being pursued in an effort to pursue their own goals and their own ends.
The Russians claim the government in Kyiv is illegitimate, but it’s a government that came to power with the vast supermajority of the Rada voting for it, including President Yanukovych’s own party, who deserted him because he deserted his country. And if your fear is illegitimacy, then you would step out of the way and encourage an election, which is set for about three and a half weeks from now, on the 25^th of May, and you would encourage that election to take place in order to provide the legitimacy.

But instead, they’re doing everything in their power to undermine free and fair elections. They claim eastern Ukraine is too violent for monitors from the OSCE to be there; but when it comes to the armed, pro-Russian separatists – the ones who are actually perpetrating the violence – they do absolutely nothing to prevent them from taking those prisoners and hostages they’ve taken, in order to free them, and they allow them to be paraded in front of the press. And we see no evidence – no evidence at all – that Russia has actually pressured any of these groups in order to release any of these people or change course.

I say this with a certain element of sorrow, because of all of the effort and energy that has been expended to try to create a structure by which we would behave – all of us – differently, representing the best hopes and aspirations of all people on the face of this planet. That’s what all of our predecessors worked so hard to achieve, setting up a structure of rule of law and international law and multilateral mechanisms by which we try to resolve these kinds of differences.

So as a result, for all of these reasons, yesterday the United States announced again – President Obama announced – additional sanctions on more Russian individuals and entities. And we’ve also restricted export licenses for high-tech items that could be used to bolster Russia’s military capabilities.

Now these steps and other steps that we and our partners have taken over the past few months are already forcing Russia to pay a steep price for its efforts to create this instability. And I mean that. You just have to look at the ratings on the bonds, you look at the capital outflow, you look at the GDP numbers that are trending downwards. This is having an impact. And as long as Russia decides to continue to fan the flames rather than help to put them out, we stand ready – with our partners – to do what is necessary, not to necessarily punish somebody, but to find a way forward that restores this process we’ve worked so hard to honor through the years.
The Russians have a clear choice: Leave Ukraine in peace and work with us together to create a strong Ukraine, a Ukraine that is not a pawn, pulled and tugged at between East and West, but a Ukraine that could be a bridge to both, with the ability to have an open trading mechanism on all degrees, 360 around Ukraine. And whatever path they choose, I can guarantee this: The United States and our allies will stand together in support of Ukraine.

This crisis is a wake-up call for us to accelerate the other work that we’ve been doing to promote a stronger, more prosperous transatlantic community.

So to start, we cannot continue to allow allied defense budgets to shrink. Clearly, not all allies are going to meet the NATO benchmark of 2 percent of GDP overnight or even next year. But it’s time for allies who are below that level to make credible commitments to increase their spending on defense over the next five years. And if we’re going to move the trend line in a positive direction, this has to be an alliance-wide effort.

Two, if we want a Europe that is both whole and free, then we have to do more together immediately, with a sense of urgency, to ensure that European nations are not dependent on Russia for the majority of their energy. In this age of new energy markets, in this age of concern about global climate change and carbon overload, we ought to be able to rush to the ability to be able to make Europe less dependent. And if we do that, that will be one of the greatest single strategic differences that could be made here. We can deliver greater energy independence and help to diversify energy sources that are available to the European markets, and we can expand the energy infrastructure across Europe, and we can build up energy storage capacity throughout the continent.

Third, we have to invest in the underpinnings of our economic partnership. We are together, Europe and the United States, two of the largest markets in the world. And the fact is that we can seriously strengthen our economic ties and accelerate growth and job creation and serve as a buffer to any negative impacts of some of the steps we need to take if we move on both sides of the Atlantic rapidly to complete the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. That agreement will do more to change the way we do business and some of our strategic considerations than any other single economic step that we can take, with the sole exception of the energy independence.

So my friends, I’ll just close by saying to all of you that this moment – without reaching for any hyperbole because the moment is serious enough that it doesn’t require that – this moment is about more than just ourselves. The fact is that our entire model of global leadership is at stake. And if we stand together, if we draw strength from the example of the past and refuse to be complacent in the present, then I am confident that NATO, the planet’s strongest alliance, can meet the challenges, can absolutely take advantage of the opportunities that are presented by crisis, and that we can move closer to a Europe that is whole and prosperous, at peace, and free and strong.

That’s our goal, and we look forward to working with our fellow ministers and with each of these countries to achieve it. Thank you for letting me be with you. (Applause.)

U.S. AND EU ON GLOBAL NONPROLIFERATION OF WMD

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
U.S., EU Lead Global Nonproliferation, Biosurveillance Efforts
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 28, 2013 - As nuclear, biological and chemical threats continue to evolve worldwide, partnership between the United States and European Union countries to counter such threats remains critical, a senior Defense Department official said today in Helsinki.

Andrew C. Weber, assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, spoke at a meeting of the Atlantic Council on U.S.-European Union cooperation in countering the use of weapons of mass destruction.

The Atlantic Council is a public policy institution founded in 1961 to promote transatlantic cooperation and international security.

"In the coming years," Weber said, "our countries must continue to work together to raise safety and security standards, strengthen the Global Partnership and the [Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons], detect and report threats in real time, and promote disarmament."

The Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction consists of 25 countries, including 12 members of the European Union, works to reduce the global risk.

Such threats, Weber added, "are evolving in ways that affect all of our countries."

Increasing globalization, advances in dual-use technologies, and the emergence of new microbes and drug-resistant pathogens are complicating the ability to meet nonproliferation and counterproliferation goals, the assistant secretary observed.

Advances in technology and the work of illicit networks are making it easier for nonstate actors to access materials needed to produce weapons of mass destruction, he added, and the regimes in Syria and North Korea "are proving that we must maintain our focus on state-sponsored programs."

The European Union and the United States have made firm commitments to addressing the full range of concerns about weapons of mass destruction, Weber said.

"As Finland's 2012 Security and Defense Policy report points out," he continued, 'In the era of global challenges the EU and the United States, being close strategic partners, are expected to cooperate to achieve lasting solutions.'"

Cooperation is especially important in addressing threats of this magnitude and complexity, he said. "As Finland's defense policy report notes," he added, "the U.S. administration believes strongly in using partnerships and cooperation to mitigate global threats."

Weber called this a guiding principle for efforts to counter weapons of mass destruction threats.

In December, he noted, President Barack Obama said the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction, or CTR, program to reduce nuclear, biological and chemical threats is one of the most important U.S. national security programs and a perfect example of the kind of partnerships needed to meet challenges that no nation can address on its own.

"For two decades, our cooperative threat reduction work focused on the former Soviet Union and on reducing nuclear threats. Since then, it has evolved both geographically and by focus area," Weber said. That evolution, along with other collaborative efforts, is increasing the cooperative threat reduction focus on biological threats, he noted.

"The United States looks forward to working with international partners to launch, enhance and link global networks for real-time biosurveillance, expanding International Health Regulation capabilities across the globe and developing novel diagnostics," he said, adding that many European Union countries with advanced biological-science sectors are helping to build global reporting networks.

Weber said that uniting the health, security and emergency-response sectors in the United States and European Union countries is critical to preparedness for any kind of threat.

"By applying this principal to our international partnerships, both the EU and the United States are contributing to more resilient communities around the world," he added.

The European Union and the United States also lead the world on a path toward disarmament, the assistant secretary said, and strengthening the nonproliferation treaty and other nonproliferation initiatives remains a core principle of their defense strategies.

Weber recognized Finland's leadership on this and its commitment to moving toward a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone in the Middle East. He also commended the efforts of Ambassador Jaakko Laajava, Finnish undersecretary of state for foreign and security policy, to set the conditions for making this vision a reality.

"For the United States," he said, "President Obama has set a bold vision for disarmament and continues to prioritize the Nuclear Security Summit process ... [and] established ambitious goals for a world safe and secure from biological threats."

The assistant secretary quoted part of Obama's 2012 address before the U.N. General Assembly: "We must come together to prevent and detect and fight every kind of biological danger -- whether it's a pandemic like H1N1, or a terrorist threat, or a treatable disease.'"

Under the president's leadership, Weber said, "the United States now has national strategies for countering biological threats and advancing global biosurveillance capabilities."

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL'S REMARKS REGARDING BALKANS POLICY



Petrela Castle, Albania.  Credit:  CIA World Factbook

FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

U.S. Policy Toward the Balkans

Remarks
Philip H. Gordon
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs
Atlantic Council
Washington, DC
November 13, 2012

Thanks, Damon. It really is a pleasure to be here. Thanks also to Fran for inviting me and giving me this opportunity to address what I know will be a valuable workshop over the next day or two.

As Damon mentioned, it’s not something -- it’s not just something I would have wanted to address anyway, but it’s particularly timely given the trip that Secretary Clinton just took to the region accompanied in part by EU High Representative Ashton.

I’d like to begin with a point that Damon also stressed in his introduction which is putting this in some global context. I think it goes without saying that the United States at this moment is facing a world full of tremendous global challenges. The conflict in Syria, the transition in Afghanistan, the economic slowdown in Europe, the challenges in North Africa, and we’ve been obviously responding to those challenges on a day-to-day basis -- but the point I want to begin with, that again Damon you alluded to, is even as we face these tremendous challenges all over the world, we have never lost sight of the fact that we maintain a deep and historic interest in the Western Balkans, which is a part of the world where the United States has invested so much and where we have so many friends and interests, and I think the Secretary’s most recent visit to the region just a couple of weeks ago reaffirmed that abiding American commitment to supporting democracy and stability and prosperity in that region.

Just as the United States and the European Union are working hand in hand on these global challenges, as some of you have heard me address our partnership and cooperation with Europe globally here and elsewhere, we’re doing so in the Balkans, and I can’t stress that point enough.

It’s not a competition. Indeed, on the contrary, we know, we in the United States know, we cannot succeed in the region without Europe and Europe cannot succeed without us.

The prospect of EU membership has provided a strong incentive for countries to reform their economies, to advance their democracies, and to make peace with their neighbors, and we in the United States have strongly supported that process in Central and Eastern Europe, where it’s been an enormous success, and we strongly support it in the Balkans.

Again, I think this very close cooperation was most visibly demonstrated by the joint trip that Secretary Clinton and High Representative Ashton took. Secretary Clinton hasn’t done other joint trips with foreign ministers, but here we thought it was important for them to show up in some of these countries together. They went together to Bosnia, to Serbia and to Kosovo, with exactly the same message for the peoples and leaders in the region.

Their joint visit reaffirmed our continued commitment to integrating all of the Balkan region into Europe and into the West, and we’ve said many times that in our view Europe will never be complete until all of the Western Balkans are fully integrated.

At the same time they were able to make clear that progress depends on political leaders’ willingness to overcome the divisions and the narrow nationalism and the inflexible economies that have no place in the 21st century.

So let me say a few words about how the United States sees the current situation in the region, and I’ll do so by addressing the countries in the order in which the Secretary visited them, starting with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Earlier this year after a 16-month political stalemate, Bosnia appeared to be getting back on track with the formation of a government and the adoption of laws needed to advance its Euro-Atlantic integration. However, this progress stalled several months ago over narrow personal and political agendas as well as attempts to stoke ethnic fears.

Ongoing efforts to reshuffle the state and federation governments are an unwelcome distraction from the economic and political priorities, including EU-NATO membership, that the main parties profess to support.

The priorities are clear: a functional and sustainable government, respect for state institutions and the Dayton Framework, and completion of the steps required for advancing the EU and NATO membership processes.

Now that Bosnia has successfully held local elections, Secretary Clinton and High Representative Ashton called on political leaders to complete immediately the requirements needed in order to submit a credible EU candidacy application and to activate NATO’s Membership Action Plan this year.

While we have no illusions about the difficulty of this process, we know that it is the only path to a prosperous and stable future for the country.

In order for Bosnia and Herzegovina to keep pace with positive developments elsewhere in the region it must also be able to function as a state that can deliver results for all its citizens. Rhetoric challenging Bosnia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity continues to raise doubts about whether politicians in Republika Srpska are truly committed to the Dayton Framework and EU integration. Secretary Clinton made clear in Sarajevo that the United States strongly supports the Dayton Framework -- one state, two entities and three constituent peoples. Republika Srpska is and must remain a constituent part of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Let me say a few words about Kosovo and Serbia, both of whose Euro-Atlantic aspirations the United States strongly supports.

As you know over the last 18 months the United States has backed an EU-facilitated dialogue that seeks to normalize relations between these neighbors in order to provide stability in the region as well as the lives of people in both countries.

We agree with our European allies that a country can’t join the European Union when it lacks normalized relations with its neighbors. The dialogue, this EU-facilitated dialogue, achieved some practical results including agreements on freedom of movement, common recognition of diplomas, of land records, Integrated Border Management, and Kosovo’s participation in regional forums. While there were initially delays in the implementation of these last two agreements, we are very pleased that the new Serbian government that was elected last spring has taken the necessary steps towards resolving differences, and expressed its commitment to EU integration -- signing the implementation protocols on Integrated Border Management, and allowing the agreement on Kosovo’s regional participation to move forward -- these are both encouraging steps.

On October 19th the Prime Ministers of Serbia and Kosovo met together with High Representative Ashton in Brussels. At this first meeting in a new phase of the dialogue at that level, Prime Minister Dacic and Prime Minister Thaci both showed a commitment to the process and agreed to further meetings.

Secretary Clinton and High Representative Ashton’s visits to Belgrade and Pristina underscored the unity of the U.S.-EU position as they encouraged both governments to fully implement the agreement which was reached already and to take concrete steps towards solving the impasse over Kosovo’s north.

Ashton again hosted Prime Ministers Dacic and Thaci in Brussels on November 7th, further demonstrating their mutual desire to find a comprehensive solution to normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia.

Let me be clear. The United States strongly supports Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as do more than 90 other countries around the world, including the vast majority of European Union members. Neither we nor the EU expect Serbia to recognize Kosovo at this point, but Serbia will have to normalize its relations with a democratic sovereign independent multi-ethnic Kosovo within its current borders -- partition is not an option.

To move forward, Belgrade should end its support for the parallel security, governing and judicial structures in northern Kosovo and work with the international community to ensure freedom of movement for all. This in no way means abandoning Serbs, as some have alleged -- on the contrary, rather than asserting territorial claims Belgrade could support in a transparent manner the welfare of Kosovo’s Serbs who would benefit enormously from normalization. Belgrade could work to find solutions that will give people there a normal life for the first time in 13 years. The status quo of isolation, wide-spread corruption and insecurity serves no one’s interests.

At the same time Kosovo must continue to develop multi-ethnic democratic institutions and extend decentralization in order to allow local communities in the north as well as in the south to make more of their own decisions. We also expect Kosovo to respect the rights of all communities including Kosovo Serbs, and to preserve and protect their cultural and religious heritage.

On Serbia specifically, the United States continues to work with Belgrade to strengthen economic and business opportunities, enhance our military cooperation, and counter organized crime. Serbia has the ability to become a leading force for stability in the region. It is in our mutual interest to see Serbia prosper and achieve its European aspirations.

Turning to Kosovo, the country has considerably strengthened its political institutions over the last four years. The decision by the International Steering Group to end supervised independence in September validated this progress. However, work remains to be done on strengthening the rule of law, fighting corruption and organized crime, and tackling unemployment. The EU has clearly laid out the reforms necessary for Kosovo to continue its progress towards European integration, including the benchmarks for visa liberalization identified earlier this year, and the feasibility study released in October that identified no legal barriers to establishing a Stabilization and Association Agreement.

Kosovo’s serious engagement with Serbia and active reform efforts demonstrate its desire to be a constructive partner with a clear European perspective.

Following these joint stops with High Representative Ashton, Secretary Clinton continued on to Croatia and Albania

Croatia has proven to be a true leader in the region as its rapid reform progress led to NATO membership in 2009 and will lead to EU membership this coming July. Croatia’s successful integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions should demonstrate to other candidate countries that despite talk of so-called enlargement fatigue, the EU’s door really is open to countries that fulfill their responsibilities and meet the criteria -- reform your economies, reconcile with your neighbors, meet democracy and human rights standards, and you will ultimately join the European Union.

Momentum resulting from Croatia’s transition should be cultivated as a model throughout the region.

Notwithstanding Croatia’s considerable progress to date, more work remains to be done. In Zagreb, Secretary Clinton called on the government to continue efforts to improve public administration in the justice system, fight organized crime and corruption, and implement structural economic reforms.

The Secretary completed her trip in Albania. Her visit to Tirana came at a historic moment as she helped mark the 100th Anniversary of the country’s independence in a speech to the parliament. For many years Albania was Europe’s most isolated country under an oppressive dictatorship. Over the last two decades it has worked to strengthen its democracy and reform its economy. Albania joined NATO in 2009 and has become a valued member of the Alliance.

The European Commission’s most recent progress report recommended EU candidacy status for the country pending passage of key pieces of legislation. Secretary Clinton made clear that Albania now stands at a critical juncture and she highlighted the need for free, fair, and transparent elections in 2013.

She also called on members of the parliament to work across party lines and move quickly on passing EU-mandated reforms. In particular, Albania’s leaders must choose to leverage the progress achieved thus far by passing judicial and public administration reforms and revising parliamentary rules of procedure. The government also needs to make a concerted effort in fighting corruption and organized crime.

Finally, although the Secretary was unable to visit Montenegro and Macedonia on this trip, she underscored her commitment to the Euro-Atlantic aspirations of both countries in phone calls with their leaders after her visit to the region.

Montenegro has made solid progress towards NATO membership and opened EU accession negotiations earlier this year. In addition to holding successful elections last month, the country has also made important improvements in the areas of democratic governance, rule of law and media freedom. However, Podgorica must continue to address corruption and organized crime at all levels of society.

On Macedonia, the United States remains invested in the country’s success. We continue to support the growth of civil society and strong democratic institutions as well as efforts to institutionalize principles of diversity and inclusion throughout government and society.

Although Macedonia has made progress in inter-ethnic relations, we are concerned about tension between communities and political divisions. We also remain troubled by continued reports of government interference with the independence of the judiciary and the media.

As you all know, Macedonia’s name dispute with Greece continues to thwart its aspirations for NATO membership and the start of EU accession talks. We’ve been very clear that we were disappointed last spring that NATO was unable to welcome Macedonia at the Chicago Summit as we had hoped. But as NATO is a consensus organization, Macedonia and Greece must first resolve their bilateral disagreement before the Alliance can fulfill the membership offer that was offered at the Bucharest Summit.

Recently the Greek and Macedonian Foreign Ministers have exchanged letters reaffirming each side’s commitment to resolving the name issue and we strongly support the ongoing UN process on this issue and we will embrace any mutually acceptable solution that emerges.

It is clearly in the United States’ -- as in the interests of Europe and the entire Balkan region -- that Macedonia plays its full role in both NATO and the EU.

In closing, let me just say a few words about the overarching challenge of economic recovery. The United States has a profound interest in Europe’s stability and growth, so I’m pleased to see that this workshop will also discuss the impact of economic issues on regional integration.

The political challenges that I have focused on today have undoubtedly been exacerbated by Europe’s economic difficulties. The economic slowdown in Europe could have been an opportunity for Balkan leaders to focus on pressing domestic challenges including the need for rule of law reforms in the promotion of a stable investment climate. Instead, it has led to a worrying increase in nationalist rhetoric and the reemergence of chauvinism as a political rallying point.

Foreign investors will continue to bypass countries plagued by corruption, cronyism, weak state structures and political instability. By strengthening their economies as well as their political institutions, Western Balkan countries can become democratic, prosperous and capable allies that can contribute to Euro-Atlantic efforts to address global challenges.

The United States, working in close partnership with the European Union, remains committed to completing the unfinished business of Europe. However, as Secretary Clinton and High Representative Ashton also made clear, local political leaders must move past ethnic divisions and personal interests and focus on delivering the genuine reforms demanded by their citizens. If they do, they can count on the continued Trans-Atlantic support until Europe’s democratic process is fulfilled.

Thank you all very much for your attention, and Fran, I look forward to continuing the discussion with you on stage.