President Barack Obama on Saturday cautioned that “America is not as divided as some have suggested”, while acknowledging a week plagued by deadly violence involving law enforcement in the U.S.
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He said the next summit meeting will take place in Brussels at NATO’s new headquarters, a news agency reported.
In his comments to reporters, Obama indicated that he thought Castile’s gun contributed to that shooting: “In Minneapolis, we don’t know yet what happened but we do know there was a gun in the vehicle that apparently was licensed”.
“This has been a tough week”, the president said.
The plan was approved July 9 on the second day of the summit in Warsaw.
Obama also used the meetings to urge North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies to expand their support for the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban.
But because USA military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have shifted from combat to training and assisting local forces against militant groups, they are “fundamentally different” than when Obama took office, he said.
President Barack Obama on Saturday rejected the notion that this week’s stunning violence is a signal that the US has returned to some of the darkest days of its past, saying that as painful as the killings of police and black men were, “America is not as divided as some have suggested”. He also blamed the lack of significant gun control legislation, in part, on a “very intense minority” as opposed to the “majority of Americans who think we can be doing better in terms of gun safety”. Others measures included launching a maritime security operation in the Mediterranean to counter people trafficking and terrorism, reinforcing missile defense, strengthening cyber warfare defense and an agreement to continue funding for Afghan forces until 2020.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says NATO needs to adapt to confront an array of new threats to its member nations’ security, including cyberattacks and violent extremism generated by radical Muslim organizations like the Islamic State group. He said the “empathy and understanding” that Americans have shown in responding to the events of the past few days, including Dallas police officers even as they came under attack, had given him hope.
While the Dallas attack diverted Obama’s attention for at least some of the day, other leaders gathered in Poland were distracted by the still-uncertain future between Britain and the European Union. As we’ve seen in a whole range of incidents with mass shooters, they are by definition troubled…
The alliance faces a variety of security threats “both from the east and from the south; from state and non-state actors; from military forces and from terrorist, cyber, or hybrid attacks”, leaders said in their final declaration.
On Friday, NATO leaders approved the deployment of four multinational battalions to Poland and the Baltic states to deter Russian Federation, as well as a Romanian-Bulgarian brigade for the Black Sea region.
David Cameron has agreed to send a 500-strong battalion to Estonia with a further company of 150 troops to be stationed in Poland “on an enduring basis”.
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Obama has said he will cut short his foreign trip and visit Dallas next week after a black extremist opened fire on officers protecting a peaceful march against police brutality.
