Brussels: Europe and the Arabs
The meetings of NATO foreign ministers, hosted by Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, will begin tomorrow afternoon, Thursday, and before the informal meeting. According to a statement issued by the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will deliver the keynote speech at the conference “75 Years of NATO: How Are we staying on track? It will be hosted by the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. After that, the State Medal ceremony will be held and the President of the Czech Republic will present it to the Secretary-General. At six in the afternoon, the foreign ministers will begin arriving at Prague Castle to begin discussions on many files, perhaps the most prominent of which is the file of developments in the situation in Ukraine. Yesterday, Tuesday, the Secretary-General participated in this file. NATO's Jens Stoltenberg at an EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting at defense ministerial level to discuss continued support for Ukraine and the need to increase defense production. A NATO statement quoted the NATO Secretary-General as saying: Ukraine's most urgent need is more air defense. Stoltenberg added: "NATO and the European Union have worked very closely together to provide unprecedented military, economic and financial support to Ukraine." He stressed the need to accelerate the delivery of “ammunition and air defense systems, especially the most advanced Patriot systems.”
Ahead of the Washington summit next month, NATO is developing plans to further coordinate the provision of equipment and training, backed by a financial pledge. Stoltenberg stressed the need to "prevent gaps and delays as we have seen recently", and the importance of providing "predictable and accountable long-term support", so that Ukraine can prevail as an independent, sovereign state.
Stoltenberg added that NATO is "working closely with the transatlantic defense industrial base to increase production," both to support Ukraine and for allied stockpiles.