NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the allies also made commitments to continue to fund the Afghan security forces through 2020, and are “close to” the needed $5 billion per year.
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The NATO summit in Warsaw was a demonstration of the unity of the alliance and a clear signal to Russian Federation, experts have said, though some believe strengthening the eastern flank with four multinational battalions is a largely symbolic move.
He restated NATO’s political support for Ukraine and said the alliance would help Kiev tackle risks from improvised explosive devices on top of other assistance aimed at improving Ukraine’s military capabilities that had been agreed before.
On Afghanistan, the president’s decision this week to scale back planned reductions in US troop levels helped lock in commitments to sustain the NATO-led military effort there through 2020.
There were no public details about the considerations behind which soldiers will go where. But he said there will be fewer USA troops training Afghan conventional forces, although the US will still send teams into the regions to assist the army and police.
In his news conference before departing Poland, Obama said that while “there is sorrow, there is anger, there is confusion” in the USA, “there’s unity in recognizing that this is not how we want our communities to operate”.
The planned force levels allow NATO allies to remain in regional hubs around Afghanistan, with Germany in the north, Italy in the west, Turkey in the capital of Kabul and the United States in the east and south.
Obama said the Dallas police force reduced murder rates and community complaints by taking the issue of race and police conduct seriously, and said he hoped that would inspire “constructive actions” in the coming weeks. And more than 5,500 Afghan troops were killed past year in combat with the Taliban that revealed significant shortcomings among Afghan security forces. “It will make it harder”.
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”.
Obama pledged an “unwavering commitment of the United States to the security and defense of Europe” and said the common defense of the trans-Atlantic alliance would never change.
The United States and European Union have both imposed sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis but in Europe in particular there are growing calls for them to be scaled back.
Those moves were strongly criticised Saturday by Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet president during the Cold War. “They only talk about defense, but actually are preparing for offensive operations”.
The comments marked the third time in as many days that Obama has spoken, from a distance, about the police-involved fatal shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota that were followed by a sniper attack in Dallas that killed five police officers.
The president departed for Madrid, Spain, on Saturday to meet with his Spanish counterpart and other officials on Sunday as previously scheduled before traveling to Rota to speak to military personnel there.
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Heads of the alliance’s 28 countries meeting in Warsaw asserted their determination to remain united in tackling challenges from an aggressive Russian Federation under President Vladimir Putin and Islamic State terrorism.
