NATO’s North Atlantic Council and southern neighbourhood partners recently met within the Mediterranean Dialogue (MD) and Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) frameworks, to take stock of their partnerships and share views on regional security challenges, especially in the Sahel and the Gulf regions, respectively.
On 9 April 2025, NATO’s Deputy Secretary General, Ms Radmila Shekerinska, chaired a meeting with representatives of the four ICI partners (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates). This followed a 19 March meeting, chaired by NATO’s Secretary General, Mr Mark Rutte, with representatives of the seven MD partners (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia).
The Secretary General and the Deputy Secretary General underscored NATO’s commitment to the southern neighbourhood and its readiness to engage more actively with MD and ICI partners on security issues of shared interest. They noted that growing instability in the Sahel region and the latest developments in the Gulf have direct implications for the security of NATO’s partners in the region and for the Euro-Atlantic area.
The NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Southern Neighbourhood, Mr Javier Colomina, used both occasions to brief on the efforts undertaken to enhance political dialogue and practical cooperation with these NATO partners and further synergies with regional and international organisations, in accordance with NATO’s Southern Neighbourhood Action Plan, which was agreed at the July 2024 Washington Summit. He also highlighted the first agenda for tackling security challenges, developed between NATO and the southern neighbourhood partners, which was approved by NATO Foreign Ministers in early April 2025.
