KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait— A NATO delegation meeting with Kuwait took place in Kuwait City, Jan. 10-11, 2017, to lay the foundations for future regional operations at the NATO-Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) Regional Centre.

 

French Army Col. Vincent Alexandre, Allied Joint Force Command Naples Military Partnership Branch Head, and U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Eric Howland, Kuwait desk officer for JFC Naples MPB, joined the NATO international staff, for multiple meetings with the Kuwait National Security Bureau on the centre, which is slated to open later this month. The focus was for both NATO and Kuwait to have a better understanding of the types of activities that could be conducted in the new facility while ensuring Kuwait’s partnership goals with NATO could be better achieved.

 

The President of the Kuwait National Security Bureau offered to host and build the NATO-ICI Regional Centre during the 2012 Chicago Summit.  When the Centre opens, it will be a major deliverable in NATO-ICI cooperation.  The Centre will boast multilateral cooperation that may range from training, joint strategic analysis, flagship defense and related security capacity building projects, public diplomacy, as well as outreach to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

 

JFC Naples is leading the charge by organizing several Mobile Training Teams for 2017 that will be hosted in the NATO-ICI Regional Centre. Organizers say the training activities will be vital part of increasing NATO’s interaction not only with Kuwait, but additionally with the other ICI nations’ of Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.  The end goal of these activities is to foster a stronger partnership with all the ICI nations while increasing the interoperability of NATO and the ICI nations.

 

The Centre’s host, Kuwait, is an active NATO partner country, and has been a member of the ICI framework since its creation in 2004. It currently participates in numerous NATO initiatives including the NATO Defense College, senior executive NATO courses and other key leader engagements.