BRUSSELS. July 16 (Interfax) - The NATO-Russia Council Cooperative Airspace Initiative (NRC CAI) will start operating in full format after the conclusion of an intergovernmental agreement, which is planned by the end of the year, Russia's acting envoy to NATO Nikolai Korchunov told Interfax in Brussels on Saturday.
"The NRC CAI has officially entered the operational phase since December 6, 2011. The full format phase presumes that operators will be on duty on the 24/7 basis," he said.
In line with the provisions of the NATO-Russia Relations: A New Quality Rome Declaration, the parties have been successfully implementing the CAI project in the NATO-Russia Council format, designed to ensure compatibility of air traffic control systems to prevent terrorism and incidents involving aircraft since 2002. The participants in the initiative include Russia, Poland, Turkey, and Norway. Six more states, i.e. the U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Greece and Hungary finance the project, and Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania act as observers, Korchunov said.
"The project is aimed at bolstering the common potential in countering the threat of terrorism using civilian aircraft, improving transparency and predictability of the development of the airspace situation, and confidence building measures along the Russia-NATO contact line," he said.
"The CAI is designed to practice mechanisms of joint responses to quite tangible threats from the air through mutual transmission of data on aircraft which air navigation services suspect of being used for terrorist ends or in other emergency situations, such as pilot error, mechanical failures, or unfavorable weather conditions and accidents," Korchunov said.
The radar data exchange system's establishment has been completed now, Korchunov said. The system includes coordination centers of Russia in Moscow and NATO in Warsaw, connected with local coordination sites in Kaliningrad, Rostov-on-Don, and Murmansk (Russia), Warsaw (Poland), Ankara (Turkey), and Bodo (Norway).