Defence Minister says 2008 must be the year of IPAP implementation

The year 2007 was in general a period of planning the mechanisms for launching the NATO-Moldova Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP). The year 2008 must become the year of the initiation of IPAP implementation, Minister of Defence Vitalie Vrabie said at a working meeting. According to the Ministry of Defence, the meeting analyzed the activity of the subgroups created to implement the military component of the IPAP. According to the basic report presented at the meeting, the activities are carried out according to plan, with the active participation of specialists of the National Army and with assistance from international experts. It was recommended to step up efforts to eliminate the drawbacks that are generally related to the complex process of adopting the fundamental national security documents. Vitalie Vrabie said that the results of the activities related to the military component of IPAP should be clearly systematized so as to hold an extended meeting on the given topic with senior state officials, representatives of law enforcement bodies and other institutions involved. IPAP was signed in 2006. The Republic of Moldova became the sixth country in the post-Soviet area to join this mechanism of cooperation with NATO, after Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Kazakhstan.