Sharing burdens, fight against terrorism on NATO summit’s agenda, says Stoltenberg in Budapest
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Budapest (MTI) – Sharing the burdens of defence spending and the fight against terrorism are expected to be in the focus of a NATO summit to be held in Brussels in May, Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview to MTI on Thursday.
After meeting United States Secretary of Defense James Mattis on Tuesday and attending an international meeting of foreign ministers concerning the fight against the Islamic State terrorist organisation, Stoltenberg said he believed NATO had untapped potential in this field.
He said he expected ways to increase NATO’s participation in the fight against terrorism to be one of the main topics of the NATO summit in May.
Different options are being assessed as to how to enhance NATO’s activities in Iraq, for instance, and elsewhere. NATO strongly believes that the training of local security forces and strengthening local capabilities are the best methods in the fight against terrorism, he added.
It is not sustainable in the long term to station NATO troops in other countries to fight terrorism. Instead local forces should be enabled to carry out these tasks, he said.
At the same time, he said NATO is already playing a key role in the fight against terrorism. The Afghanistan mission is the largest in NATO’s history and the purpose of the presence of NATO troops is to prevent the country from becoming a “safe haven” of international terrorism, he added. The organisation also supports the US-led coalition’s fight in Syria by contributing AWACS reconnaissance aircraft, participates in the training of Iraqi security forces and cooperates with other countries in the region, such as Jordan and Tunisia, he said.
Assessing the security situation in Afghanistan, he said it continues to be complex because various players are vying to take over the government.
“We must be prepared for more violence and more attacks,” he said.
At the same time, he added that progress is being made, and whereas more than 100,000 NATO troops were stationed in the country a few years ago their number is currently down to 13,000.