BUDAPEST, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- A total of 42 defense ministers will attend an informal meeting of NATO to be held here on Oct. 9-10, Hungarian Defense Ministry Spokesman Istvan Bocskai said on Friday.

    Hungarian News Agency MTI quoted Bocskai as saying that Hungary will host the meeting of NATO defense ministers for the first time since it became a member of NATO.

    Apart from the 26 NATO member states, 16 other countries involved in the operations of the military alliance will be represented by their defense ministers. The non-NATO members attending the meeting include Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Georgia, Iceland, Jordan, Macedonia, New Zealand, Singapore, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates.

    The ministers will discuss the situation of ongoing NATO operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo, and the transformation of NATO. The NATO-Georgia Committee, which was set up recently, will hold its first ministerial session in Budapest. The Committee will discuss the situation and tasks of security and defense cooperation with Georgia.

    The NATO-Russia and NATO-Ukraine committees will not meet in Budapest. Though NATO-Russia relations were suspended, the alliance considers Russia as a strategic partner in the future, the spokesman said.