NATO Secretary General with 🇺🇸 US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, 01 JUN 2022

Press conference by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg with the US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, Washington D.C., 01 June 2022.

🗣 | NATO Secretary General:

Thank you so much Secretary Blinken, dear Tony,

It’s great to see you again.
And thank you for your strong personal engagement to our transatlantic bond at this pivotal time for our security and this is very much reflected in your frequent visits to Brussels. You are welcome back there again, but now I really appreciate this opportunity to meet with you here in Washington.

The United States is playing an indispensable role in our response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Let me commend the United States for your very significant support to Ukraine,
which is making a difference on the battlefield every day.

I also welcome the latest package of military assistance announced by President Biden this morning.

This is a demonstration of real US leadership.

The strong support provided by NATO and Allies helps ensure that President Putin’s brutal aggression is not rewarded.
And that Ukraine prevails.

At the same time, we must prevent the conflict from escalating.
So we have increased our presence in the eastern part of the Alliance.

To remove any room for miscalculation in Moscow about NATO’s readiness and determination to defend and protect all NATO Allies.

And let me thank the United States for increasing your military presence across Europe.
With over 100,000 troops, backed by significant air and naval power.

European Allies and Canada are also stepping up with more troops, higher readiness, and increased defence spending.
For the seventh consecutive year, defence spending has increased.

And more and more Allies are meeting our guideline of spending 2% of GDP on defence.

President Putin wanted less NATO.
He is getting more NATO.
More troops and more NATO members.

The decisions by Finland and Sweden to apply for NATO membership are historic.
And they will strengthen our Alliance.

We have to address the security concerns of all Allies.
And I am confident that we will find a united way forward.

To this end, I am in close contact with President Erdoğan of Turkey,
and with the leaders of Finland and Sweden.
And I will convene senior officials from all three countries in Brussels in the coming days.

Today, we also discussed the important decisions we will take at the NATO Summit in Madrid later this month.

We will agree NATO’s next Strategic Concept.
Strengthen our deterrence and defence.

And prepare for an age of increased strategic competition with authoritarian powers like Russia and China.

This includes working even more closely with our partners in the Asia-Pacific and other like-minded partners around the world.

We will also review progress on burden-sharing.

We must continue to invest in our defence, and to invest in NATO.

Because only North America and Europe, working together in a strong NATO, can keep our one billion people safe in a more dangerous world.

So Secretary Blinken, dear Tony, once again thank you so much.

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[supermash]

Interesting. It's reassuring to see how reasonably and responsibly "the West" and Nato are responding to the situation in Ukraine. This is obviously in direct opposition to how Russia acts and proceeds and how other authoritarian countries like China and others react. Personally I'm in full support of Nato and it's responsible friends (i.e. Japan, Australia, etc.) and hope that Russia learns a hard lesson from this stunt. As was made clear by both of these leaders, the ball is in Russia's court and they can end this war and the food crisis situation it has created at any time. Russia under Putin however is a belligerent and irresponsible country and I only expect more terror and instability will be conducted and created in their name. The reasonable and responsible countries will, as always, just have to deal with whatever Russia and it's unreasonable and irresponsible friends decide to do next.

[jahmansimpson]

I hope Mr secretary knows that means anything Ukraine wants to win including a no fly zone sooner or later it will come to that all countries who doesn't trust Russia should be ready