NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Sunday the presence of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea at this week’s NATO summit demonstrates the world is getting more complex.
Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” he said, “The war in Ukraine demonstrates how closely aligned Russia and China and North Korea and Iran are. China is the main enabler of Russia’s war aggression against Ukraine.”
Referencing Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Stoltenberg added: “They all want NATO, the United States to fail in Ukraine, and if Putin wins in Ukraine, it will not only embolden President Putin, it also would embolden President Xi. As the Japanese prime minister said: What happens in Ukraine today can happen in Asia tomorrow.”
NATO, which was born in 1949 as a Western answer to Soviet domination in Eastern Europe, will mark its 75th anniversary with a summit in Washington from Tuesday to Thursday.
The alliance now has 32 members, having added Finland and Sweden since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war. Ukraine has yet to be formally invited by NATO, and it’s not clear when that might occur.
Regardless, Stoltenberg said that supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia remains a priority.
“We’re making important decisions,” Stoltenberg said of the summit, “on stepping up our support to Ukraine, and NATO will take over the provision and the coordination of security assistance to Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg said he was not disturbed by the recent visit by Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán to Moscow, where he met with Putin on what he dubbed a “peace mission.” Hungary, formerly part of the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, has been a NATO country since 1999.
“What matters for me is that all allies have agreed that we need to do more for for Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said, saying the alliance was not interested in a peace that would allow for the continued occupation of Ukraine’s territory by Russian forces.
This will be the last such summit under the leadership of Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister who is to be succeeded by former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the fall.
Stoltenberg declined to answer questions from host Robert Costa on President Joe Biden’s fitness for office or anything else to do with the 2024 American elections.
“I think it is important for NATO to stay out of that kind of domestic discussion. They’re of course, important in the United States, but NATO should not be part of it,” he said.
