United States President Donald Trump on Monday committed to attend a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation leaders in May in Europe, Reuters reported. His decision came a day after he had a telephonic conversation with the alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The Nato summit will be held in Brussels in May.
According to a White House statement, the two leaders discussed how to “encourage all Nato allies to meet their defence spending commitments”. Trump and Stoltenberg also discussed the possible peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict along the Ukrainian border. “The Secretary General recalled Nato’s consistent policy of strong defence and dialogue with Russia,” the statement read.
In the last week, more than 40 people have been killed in violence in the region, according to Reuters. The Russia-backed separatists and the Ukrainian military have blamed each other.
During his presidential campaign, Trump had criticised the organisation, claiming other European countries were not contributing enough. On January 15, in an interview with The Times of London, Trump had called Nato obsolete because it was “not taking care of terror”. “A lot of these countries aren’t paying what they’re supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States,” Trump had said. However, he later had added that Nato was “very important” to him.
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