BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Nine NATO countries on the alliance’s eastern flank held talks Friday in Romania ahead of a key NATO summit later this month, with some leaders urging NATO to step up cover for Russia’s protracted war on Ukraine.
Friday’s summit in Bucharest provided a platform for NATO’s eastern members to talk about regional security issues and forge a united voice within the 30-member security alliance. Participants included Romania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia. and Lithuania.
“We will have to make sure that NATO is capable and ready to respond well and calibrated to the threats it faces,” Romanian President Klaus Iohannis told reporters after Friday’s meeting. its territory. “
“The result we pursue is a consolidated NATO presence on the eastern flank, united and coherent, robust, credible and sustainable, especially in the Black Sea, the maximum exposed to Russia’s threats,” Iohannis added.
Three NATO members, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, border the Black Sea, which has a key battleground in the war in Ukraine.
NATO plans to hold a “Strategic Concept” summit in Madrid at the end of June to reaffirm its values and rationale and outline its long-term goals.
Polish President Andrzej Duda said Friday that “we also count on an increase in the American presence in our part of Europe” and that he needs to increase the number of NATO troops in the country on the eastern flank.
“We need to expand the enhanced presence we have on NATO’s eastern flank,” he said. “We need the existing battalion teams to be transformed into brigade teams. “
Duda said a brigade has 3,000 troops, which would mean an “important and visual reinforcement. “
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, NATO’s presence on the eastern flank by adding 4 multinational battle groups to Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. This brings to 8 the total number of battle groups, stretching from the Black Sea in the south to the Baltic Sea. in the north.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who was due to join the leaders in Bucharest, signed up for the forum via video after contracting shingles. many of them meet or exceed the 2% of GDP target for defence spending. “
Iohannis said he was “strengthening NATO’s relations with partners in the region, who are deeply exposed to Russian tension and aggression” and expressed his “firmness for NATO’s ‘open door’ policy and donations from Sweden and Finland” to join NATO.
“The accession of those states will contribute to strengthening the security of the Alliance as a whole,” he said.
During the Cold War, the eastern flank nations that make up the Bucharest Nine organization, which was introduced through Romania and Poland in 2015, were all controlled through Moscow, and the 3 Baltic states were incorporated into the Soviet Union. Today, they are all miembros. de NATO and the European Union.
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Dumitrache contributed from Bucharest; McGrath contributed from Sighisoara, Romania; Monika Scislowska contributed from Warsaw, Poland.
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