Much has been accomplished since that time. In order to enhance their ability to stand together against shared security threats, NATO and Russia have intensified work to develop interoperability of military forces and equipment, of civil emergency planning teams, of theatre missile defence systems and - not least - of threat analysis. In 2004, the NATO-Russia Council approved a comprehensive Action Plan on Terrorism, which includes concrete initiatives to prevent, combat and manage the consequences of terrorist acts. Russia became the first non-NATO state ever to contribute to an Article 5 collective defence operation, when in 2006, Russian Navy assets joined the Alliance's anti-terrorist naval patrols in the Mediterranean Sea.
The transformation of the NATO-Russia relationship has not been limited to technical projects. An intensified political dialogue on contemporary security issues has served to identify new areas in which NATO and Russia share fundamental challenges, and new ways in which they can pool their efforts to enhance common security.
Nowhere has this trend been more evident than in the international effort to bring peace, stability and democratic development to Afghanistan. In 2005, NRC foreign ministers recognised that the illegal narcotics trade posed a fundamental challenge to this effort. They launched a path-breaking joint training programme designed to build counter-narcotics capabilities throughout the region. By the end of this year, more than 350 officers from Afghanistan and its Central Asian neighbours will have graduated from this programme.
Finally, the NRC has evolved into a forum for serious dialogue on those issues where we do not see eye-to-eye. Earlier this year, when Russia expressed concern over the implications of US plans to locate a third missile defence site in Central Europe, both Moscow and Washington turned to the NATO-Russia Council as the appropriate forum to address this politically charged and technically challenging issue. Experts agreed to expand the scope of the NRC's annual work programme, to build upon an established record of cooperation in field-deployed theatre missile defence and to explore broader cooperation in the missile defence area. The NRC agreed to organise a series of high-level meetings, reinforced by policymakers from capitals in order to promote transparency and dialogue, to better understand the US plans and the Russian concerns, and to find a cooperative way forward.
Another contentious issue on our agenda concerns the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE). Here, there are longstanding differences over complex legal and political questions - from the Russian side over the timetable for ratification and entry into force of an agreement to adapt the Treaty to the current security environment, and from the Allied side over Russia's compliance with the Treaty's host-state consent provisions in Georgia and Moldova. In April, President Putin declared a "moratorium" on Russia's implementation of the Treaty, and Russia subsequently called for an extraordinary conference of the Treaty's participants.
Amid all this controversy, it is easy to forget what NATO Allies and Russia have achieved together in the CFE framework. More than 60 000 pieces of heavy military equipment have been destroyed, and the potential for a large-scale military attack in Europe virtually eliminated. NATO's holdings of Treaty-limited equipment have been reduced so dramatically that today's Alliance of 26 states is more lightly armed than the Alliance of 16 that existed in 1990. The NATO-Russia Council has expressed repeatedly its support for CFE as an essential cornerstone of European security, and rightly so.
As the NATO-Russia relationship moves forward, we need to continue our dialogue on these and other difficult issues, even as we work to intensify our practical cooperation in areas where our interests clearly converge. In the first five years of our partnership, working in the framework of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council, our primary focus was on overcoming the legacy of the past by promoting transparency and mutual confidence. In the second stage, motivated by the urgent threats of terrorism and proliferation, we geared the work of the new NATO-Russia Council almost exclusively toward questions of the future and toward new ways in which we could join forces to face unprecedented new threats. Over the next five years, we will have to pursue both of these goals simultaneously, in order to ensure that deepening cooperation stands on a firm foundation of mutual trust. If we are to succeed in facing tomorrow's challenges, we can do no less.