MADRID (AP) – NATO leaders on Wednesday tried to turn into action an urgent sense of purpose provoked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and fix any loopholes in its unity to overcome what the head of the alliance called its biggest crisis since World War II.
His neighbor’s Russian invasion broke the peace of Europe and prompted NATO to dump troops and weapons into Eastern Europe on a scale not seen since the Cold War. Alliance members have also sent billions in military and civilian aid to Ukraine.
The 30 NATO leaders gathered in Madrid will listen directly to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is likely to ask them to do even more when he addresses the meeting via video link. And NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged that the alliance is “in the midst of the most serious security crisis we have faced since World War II.”
U.S. President Joe Biden, whose country provides most of NATO’s military power, said the summit would send “an unmistakable message … that NATO is strong and united.”
“We are stepping up. We are proving that NATO is more needed now than ever, “Biden said. He announced a strong boost to the U.S. military presence in Europe, including a permanent U.S. base in Poland, two more Navy destroyers with based in Rota, Spain, and two more F35 squadrons in the United Kingdom.
But tensions have also arisen among NATO allies as the cost of energy and other essential goods has skyrocketed, in part because of war and harsh Western sanctions on Russia. There are also tensions over how the war will end and what concessions, if any, Ukraine should make to stop the fighting.
Money can also be a sensitive issue: only nine of NATO’s 30 members currently meet the organization’s goal of spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose country has reached the target, urged NATO allies “to dig deep to restore deterrence and ensure defense in the next decade.”
The war has already sparked a major increase in NATO forces in Eastern Europe, and the Allies are expected to agree at the summit to increase the alliance’s rapid reaction force by almost eight times. , from 40,000 to 300,000 soldiers, next year. The troops will be based in their home countries, but will be dedicated to specific countries on the eastern flank of NATO, where the alliance plans to stockpile equipment and ammunition.
Stoltenberg said NATO was carrying out “the biggest overhaul of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War.”
Leaders are also willing to publish NATO’s new strategic concept, its set of priorities and goals once every decade.
The last such document, in 2010, called Russia a “strategic partner.” Now, the alliance is ready to declare Moscow its No. 1 threat. The paper will also outline NATO’s focus on issues from cybersecurity to climate change and China’s growing economic and military reach.
For the first time, leaders from Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand are attending the summit as guests, a reflection of the growing importance of the Asia-Pacific region.
Stoltenberg said China was not an opponent of NATO, but posed “challenges to our values, our interests and our security.”
Biden was to hold a rare meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on the sidelines of the summit, which focused on North Korea’s nuclear program.
The summit opened with a resolved issue, after Turkey agreed on Tuesday to lift its opposition to Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO. In response to the invasion, the two Nordic nations abandoned their long-standing non-aligned status and called for joining NATO as protection against an increasingly aggressive and unpredictable Russia, which shares a long border. with Finland.
NATO operates by consensus, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to block the Nordic couple, insisting that they change their position on Kurdish rebel groups that Turkey considers terrorists.
After urgent high-level talks with the leaders of the three countries, Alliance Secretary Stoltenberg said the impasse had cleared up.
Turkey praised Tuesday’s deal as a victory, saying the Nordic nations had agreed to crack down on groups Ankara sees as threats to national security, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is also considered a terrorist group by the United States and the United States. EU, and its Syrian. extension. He said they also agreed “not to impose embargo restrictions in the field of defense industry” in Turkey and to take “concrete steps for the extradition of terrorist offenders.”
Stoltenberg said leaders of the 30-nation alliance will issue a formal invitation to the two countries on Wednesday to join. The decision must be ratified by all individual nations, but he said he was “absolutely confident” that Finland and Sweden would become members.
Stoltenberg said he hoped the process would be completed “sooner,” but did not set a time.
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Associated Press writer Zeke Miller in Madrid contributed.
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