Today marks the official start of the Middle East Faculty and the start of the first full-length and fully-dedicated NATO Regional Cooperation Course. The NRCC represents a new outreach tool of NATO and I would encourage you to fully participate in this endeavour and to embrace the principle of “joint ownership” and make the NRCC your course. As a testimony to the personnel who worked on this project, it is worth noting that the facility was completed on time and under budget.
The NRCC has been developed through continuous consultations with the nations of the Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. The inaugural ten week NRCC course will address issues of importance to the broader Middle East Region and the wider international community. The NRCC focuses on security issues that affect both the region and NATO at the strategic political-military level. By sharing this experience with our partners from North Africa, the Middle East and the Gulf region, we will make another step towards the “human interoperability” that is so crucially important – for the success of future joint missions, as well as for our day to day cooperation.
Collège de Défense de l'OTAN