Nato's military committee began its annual meeting in Brussels on November 19, in which over 60 military commanders from all member countries of the alliance will participate, including countries from the "Partnership for Peace" and "Mediterranean Dialog" programmes that include Ukraine. General Zlatan Stoikov from the Bulgarian high command will also be amongst the delegates.

For the first time, Croatia and Albania have also been invited to participate, as their membership in Nato was approved earlier this year in April in Bucharest, but the final formalities surrounding their official entry in the union are yet to be ironed out.

During the meeting, which will last two days, priority will be given to the ongoing military operations in Afghanistan. Regarding the combat operations in Afghanistan in which Bulgaria participates under American and British command, the chief of general staff of Pakistan will also participate to discuss the future relations between Nato, the European Union and Pakistan, which has been on the forefront of the US-led war on terrorism.

Thorough re-evaluation will be made of the command structures of the Nato forces deployed on military operations around the world. Important military issues will be discussed as well as the forthcoming 60 year anniversary of the Alliance in April 2009.

Together with the chief of the Ukrainian general staff, Nato generals will discuss the eventual future participation of Ukrainian forces in military and peace keeping operations in 2009.

Finally, the delegates are not going to cover the issues of the missile and radar installations meant to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic, which have recently caused such a stir between Moscow and the alliance. Russia has threatened to deploy missile installations in Kaliningrad as a countermeasure, but this is regarded as a problem of a far more political nature than a military issue at present, thus Nato has relegated the topic from the schedule of the conference as "insignificant".