Mark Laity puts your questions to Javier Solana

Javier Solana became Secretary-General of Nato in December 1995. His handling of the crisis in Kosovo earlier this year has been in keeping with the style he's perfected during four years in the job and, before that, in several leading posts in the Spanish government, stretching back to 1982.

He will be handing over his job as Nato chief to George Robertson. Later this year he becomes the European Union's foreign and defence policy co-ordinator.

Pradeep, Canada: Mr. Solana, from a diplomatic point of view, what do you regard as Nato's greatest challenge for the 21st century?

Javier Solana: In the short term without any doubt it is the stabilisation of the Balkans. In the longer term to continue to guarantee the security of this continent, the European continent.. It has suffered a lot in the last century from many wars on their soil.

Barbara, UK: What do you see as being the main challenge ahead in your new post as the European Union's Foreign and Defence Policy Co-ordinator.

Javier Solana: The challenge is really to co-ordinate and add value to the many actions that are already taking place in foreign policy in the European Union and to start to give an impulse to the component of security. I would like to be a value-adder to the institution that is the European Union.

Sankara Kamara, Sierra Leonean, living in the United States: It's common knowledge in American political quarters that Western Europe is militarily a suckling baby that cannot effectively deal with miscreants in its backyard, let alone assume total responsibility for its defence. Can NATO hold Europe together in the face of a threat unintentionally compounded by an isolationist president in The White House?

Javier Solana: That is what Europe is trying to do, maintain a trans-Atlantic relationship, trying to have a stronger personality in security aspects. But it's true that the trans-Atlantic link is a very special link and a very valuable link for the Europeans.

Ian, USA: Why didn't NATO remove Slobodan Milosevic from power, and bring him to the world court for prosecution?

Javier Solana: Because it was not in the objective of Nato to conquer anything, the only objectives were to stop the process of ethnic cleansing and to stop the suffering of so many people.

Dr. Neil McLennan, UK: How can Mr. Solana believe there will ever be a multi-ethnic Kosovo, and since this was the claimed NATO reason for the war in Yugoslavia, is it not the case that NATO have failed, and have simply replaced one set of terror-mongers with another?

Javier Solana: No I disagree profoundly with that. I believe that we will reconstruct societies in Europe that will be multi-ethnic, it will take time, but I am sure that we will continue to see, even in the Balkans, multi-ethnic societies.

Maria Helena Henriques, Portugal: Portugal is a member of NATO and also formally administrated East Timor. NATO is supposed to protect any participant country from outside attacks. Why didn´t it happen in East Timor as still part of Portugal?