On April 25, the Atlantic Council held an off-the-record video conference with James Appathurai, NATO deputy assistant secretary general for political affairs and security policy (PASP) and the secretary general’s special representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, on NATO’s major priorities in the aftermath of the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting, which took place in Brussels on April 23rd.

Mr. Appathurai provided Atlantic Council board members, fellows, and associates with a briefing on the outcomes of the NATO Foreign Ministers Meeting. The video conference discussion touched upon the major deliverables of the Ministerial, including the Alliance’s decision to deploy Patriot missiles to Turkey, the Syrian crisis, progress on cybersecurity, NATO’s global partnerships policy, NATO-Russia relations, and NATO’s drawdown in Afghanistan.

This discussion was the second of the Atlantic Council’s video conference series—The Transatlantic Link—an initiative launched last December in cooperation with NATO Headquarters to ensure a regular exchange of information and insights between Brussels and the security policy community in Washington, DC. The project aims to engage NATO officials in a series of video briefings on NATO’s major priorities for 2013 and beyond, ranging from NATO global partnerships, cyber and energy security, to broader issues of NATO’s core purpose and its role after Afghanistan.

James Appathurai, an Atlantic Council member, has been deputy assistant secretary general for PASP and the secretary general’s special representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia since November 2010. Previously, Mr. Appathurai served as NATO’s spokesperson (2004-2010), a policy officer in the Department of National Defense in Ottawa (1994-1998), and an editorial assistant for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (1993-1994).

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