The United States would like to join in expressing its appreciation to Ambassador Traavik for his comprehensive report. We also want to thank him and the Government of Bulgaria for their leadership of the Working Table.

The Stability Pact has launched a number of initiatives on security matters. From our perspective, there have been two fundamental successes:

• First, governments, international organizations, and institutions that used to work unilaterally on similar issues are now working together. As Ambassador Traavik mentioned, NATO and World Bank collaboration on retraining demobilized military personnel as well as the anti-corruption initiative are good examples of this cooperation.
• Second, the regional states have now taken ownership of these issues. Bulgaria did an outstanding job in co-chairing the recent Table III meeting; Croatia has taken on a heavy load in hosting a large number of meetings this fall.

We agree that the Stability Pact and the OSCE are mutually reinforcing; we will continue to look for ways for OSCE to contribute to the Pact’s objectives and to assist in implementing projects.

The United States will welcome the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as a member of the Stability Pact. We hope that full membership of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia will soon take place. The Stability Pact will make a major contribution to reintegrating the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia into Europe and to build confidence between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and its neighbors.

We welcome the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Albania, Norway, Germany, and the United States, to destroy 130,000 small arms/light weapons. We hope others in the region will follow Albania’s example.

We support the OSCE task force on the trafficking of human beings. The United States will fund part of the regional assessment. We hope the task force will define a comprehensive strategy on fighting trafficking of human beings. We encourage the task force to coordinate closely with other initiatives underway such as the SECI task force.

We would also like to highlight the success of the anticorruption initiative. Comprehensive regional strategies have been drafted to combat corruption. Their implementation is well underway. Most of the SEE countries have indeed fulfilled six of the seven immediate actions called for under this initiative. We hope the anti-organized crime initiative will achieve the same results.

Finally, Madame Chairperson, we feel that field missions are one of the greatest assets of our organization. We believe more of our missions can, and should, become more active in supporting Stability Pact projects and programs.