NATO Foreign Ministerial: 27 April, Brussels

NATO Foreign Ministers will meet on Friday, 27 April 2018, in Brussels, to prepare for the Summit in July. Meeting will focus on Russia. Other topics are stability in the southern flank of NATO, where terrorist threats persist, Afghanistan, where NATO’s most important mission is deployed, and the Western Balkans, where NATO will pursue the Open Door policy.

Regarding Russia's actions, US Permanent Representative to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, said today in a telephonic press briefing attended by Radio Romania News:

"Russia’s activities have an impact on global stability. What happened in the UK, the nerve agent, the Russian nerve agent that has severely impacted citizens of UK. That cannot be tolerated. And the NATO Council took a very strong stand against any use of chemical or nerve agent weapons used in any of our member countries.

These kinds of issues cannot be tolerated. We must stand against this kind of Russian misinformation allowing the use of chemical weapons in a country that it’s very involved in protecting. This kind of behavior is very destabilizing.

And of course we’re going to stand firm against their invasion of the Ukraine, the takeover of Crimea and the areas that they are also invading in Georgia. This kind of behavior must be reversed, and we are standing solidly for that in NATO”.

As for Turkey, US Permanent Representative to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, said that the Alliance is very concerned about the purchase, apparently, of the S-400. A Russian missile defense system is going to hurt interoperability with a NATO ally. There is no question. On two fronts. On the United States front we have a law that has already passed that would put sanctions on any country that buys equipment from Russia.

Source:RRA, US Mission to NATO. Translated by Miruna Matei