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Saturday, February 5, 2000
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The Davos Military Conference
MUNICH (Islam Online) - As the Davos economic conference is closing its sessions, preparations have begun in Munich, Germany for a new conference on defense. The conference will begin its sessions today. It is expected that high level defense and civilian experts on the issue of security will be attending.
Among them will be the Secretary General of NATO, the United States Secretary of Defense, the British, French, German, Ukrainian Ministers of Defense and many other world figures. The conferees are expected to review the issue of world security as well as the issue of security on the regional and individual country levels.
Furthermore, the conference is also expected to debate the European perspective on defense occurring in the shadow of the leadership transfer of the IFOR in Kosovo to the European contingent, which is formed by military forces from Germany, Belgium, Spain, France and Luxembourg. This is expected to be the first step for the European countries to establish a European Defense System.
The conference will devote Sunday to the issue of the emergence of Asia's great military powers. The Deputy Chinese Foreign Minster, the Deputy Japanese Foreign Minster, the Indian Minster of National Security of India and the Indonesian Defense Minster will take part in the sessions. It is noticeable that Pakistan has no representative in the conference, even though Pakistan is an emerging nuclear power.
The spokesperson stated that the conference would also deal with the issue of War in Chechnya. He stated that the Russians apologized for not sending a representative due to their engagement in the election process. The spokesperson added that the conference would provide an umbrella for nations, experts and intellectuals as usual to debate the issues of defense and security. The conference is attracting military experts from the entire world. It is expected that 200 officials responsible for security will participate in the conference sessions.
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