NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday Ukraine He “came closer” to the Western alliance in the past decade and called for “a framework for ensuring Ukraine’s future security” once The war with Russia finish.
Speaking after a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Stoltenberg said members of the transatlantic alliance had agreed to “work towards the creation of a Council of Ukraine and NATO” in which Ukraine’s status would be “equal to that of NATO member states”.
“We all agree that Ukraine has really moved closer to NATO over the past decade,” Stoltenberg said. “We agree that the door to NATO is open… that Ukraine will become a member of the alliance and that this is a decision to be taken by the allies and by Ukraine. Russia does not have veto power,” he added.
Stoltenberg also stated that NATO takes Russia’s decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus “seriously”, condemning Moscow’s “dangerous rhetoric” but insisting that “so far, we have not seen changes in Russia’s nuclear posture”.
No agreement on a new defense plan
Sources told Reuters news agency that the ministers failed to reach an agreement on the alliance’s first defense plans since the end of the Cold War, as one of the diplomats said Turkey had blocked the decision on drafting geographical locations, particularly with regard to Cyprus. .
A senior US official said, “While the regional plans were not formally endorsed today, we expect these plans to be part of a series of deliverables for the Vilnius summit in July.”
Stoltenberg said he expects NATO allies to make a “more ambitious defense spending commitment” at a summit next month in Lithuania, at which he also said he was “confident we will find consensus on how to move Ukraine into NATO.”
Stoltenberg is pushing NATO members to commit to 2% of GDP as a “minimum amount,” not a target, which Germany has agreed to achieve for the first time next year.
Less than a third of NATO members meet the 2% target, with countries such as Italy, Canada and Luxembourg expressing particular concerns. But German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius insisted that “this should be achieved in most economies, even if not immediately.”
United States: “The Russians have offered the same five cars 1,000 times”
Elsewhere in the conference, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he had “encouraged” his new Turkish counterpart to agree to Sweden’s entry into the alliance.
Neutral throughout the Cold War, Sweden applied for NATO membership along with neighboring Finland in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But so far, Only the Finns officially joinedwith Türkiye blocked Sweden’s applicationwhich claims that the Swedes are harboring armed men whom it wishes to deport.
Asked about the losses of equipment provided by NATO in the fighting in eastern Ukraine, Austin said: “I think the Russians showed us the same armored vehicles about 1,000 times from ten different angles. In fact, the Ukrainians still have a lot of combat capabilities.”
Finally, he expressed optimism that he would finally be able to hold talks with his counterpart Chinese counterpart After snubbing Beijing during an event in Singapore earlier in June.
“I’m sure that will happen over time,” he said. “I haven’t communicated since then [Singapore]. But the door is open and my phone line is open so they can call anytime. And we’ll continue to work to make sure we have open lines of communication.”
mf/sms (Reuters, dpa)
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