Brunssum, The Netherlands – On 02 and 03 July 2024, Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum (JFCBS) led a visit of a NATO delegation to Azerbaijan, one of the nations participating in the NATO Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme. The country is member of the programme since 1994.
The dialogue and the military cooperation between NATO and Azerbaijan are essential and will continue
As head of the delegation, Major General Stefan Fix, JFC Brunssum Deputy Chief of Staff for Support, met with the Azerbaijan Chief of Defence, Colonel General Karim Valiyev, and the Commander of the Azerbaijani 1st Army Corps, Major General Kanan Seyidov. The NATO delegation also paid a visit to the Azerbaijan National Defence University located in Baku.
The Partnership for Peace is a programme of bilateral cooperation between individual Euro-Atlantic partner countries and NATO. It allows partners to build up an individual relationship with NATO, choosing their own priorities for cooperation.
Activities on offer under the PfP programme touch on virtually every field of NATO activity, including defence-related work, defence reform, defence policy and planning, civil-military relations, education and training, military-to-military cooperation and exercises, civil emergency response, and cooperation on science and environmental issues.
The NATO team consisted of JFCBS and SHAPE partnership experts, as well as a representative of the NATO Military Liaison Office in Tbilisi, Georgia.
The event was conducted within the Cooperative Security effort, establishing a coherent network in support of the execution of Partnership activities. This visit was dedicated to promoting the importance of efforts toward normalisation in the South Caucasus Area, by encouraging the restoration of good neighbourly relations.
Meetings with PfP nations are conducted by NATO on regular basis, and the cooperation between JFC Brunssum and Azerbaijan is well established. The country is one of presently three PfP-nations that have a permanent representation at HQ JFC Brunssum.
Summarising the visit, General Fix said: “We thank our hosts for their hospitality and the excellent exchange we had. The dialogue and the military cooperation between NATO and Azerbaijan are essential and will continue.”