Good morning, colleagues.
I call the meeting to order. This is meeting number 42 of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, Tuesday, February 28, 2007.
This morning, in our first hour, we will have a briefing on the situation in Afghanistan. We're delighted to have today two witnesses appear before our committee.
First of all, we have from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, James Appathurai, who is a spokesman on their behalf this morning. We welcome you.
Also we have from the United Nations Christopher Alexander, deputy special representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan. Welcome to the foreign affairs committee.
Our committee has undertaken a number of different studies, some dealing more with international development, others dealing with perhaps the specifics of foreign affairs. I don't like really differentiating between those two. We have had a study of democratic development and how Canada's involved in democratic development. And now we undertake a bit of a briefing and a study on Afghanistan and Canada's role in Afghanistan, progress made in Afghanistan, and the situation of Afghanistan. To that end, we welcome you.
As you know, we will have opening comments--we usually give approximately 10 minutes to each person for opening comments--and then we'll proceed into the first round of questioning, 10-minute rounds for each party, and then into the second round if time permits. We have a guest coming in the second hour, so at about five minutes before 10 o'clock we will conclude.
Again, welcome here. We look forward to your comments.
Mr. Alexander, do you wish to begin?