Joint press point by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and German Chancellor Angela Merkel

SECRETARY GENERAL:

Thank you so much Chancellor, dear Angela, it is always a great pleasure to meet with you. And thank you also for your strong support in my new capacity as the Secretary General of NATO.

Germany is such a staunch and important ally in the Alliance. And we appreciate so much the great contributions from Germany to our security, to our collective defence and to all the cooperation within the NATO Alliance.

I appreciate very much our meeting today because we started by addressing the attacks we saw in Paris last week. And those terrorist attacks they were attacks on innocent people, but also attacks on the freedom of speech, the freedom of expression and our open free societies. And I think it just reminds us of the importance of security and defence. And we have to fight terror in many different ways. It’s about attitudes; it’s about defending our values.

And I think we have seen both the people of France but also people of the whole of Europe and Germany standing united in both condemning terror but also defending, also protecting the value of freedom of speech and open societies.

NATO is also playing its role in fighting terror. We have stepped up our information exchange related to foreign fighters. We know that this is posing a threat to our societies. And we have agreed that we shall cooperate even closer when it comes to fighting the threat related to returning foreign fighters.

In addition, we are conducting training. We are developing technologies to be able to protect ourselves against attacks, especially related to explosives. Both to detect them and also to defend us against explosives, which are used by terrorists in attacking in our societies.

And in addition we work together with partner countries in our neighborhood to enable them to be more able to fight terror in their countries and in their regions.

In addition, I think, we have to remember that the operation in Afghanistan, where Germany played a crucial role. That was a big operation, the biggest operation NATO has ever conducted. That was a direct response on a terrorist attack, the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

So the whole Afghanistan operation, which has lasted for thirteen years, has actually been a big counter terror operation. And the main goal of our efforts in Afghanistan has been to prevent that Afghanistan is a safe haven for terrorist organizations.

So NATO together with Allies, together with Germany, are doing a lot in combating terrorism.

And I just visited Afghanistan before Christmas, and I met with the German soldiers. And we are so grateful for the great efforts and the great contributions by Germany and by the German soldiers in Afghanistan.

We also discussed the challenges we are facing to the east. And we see that international law is violated, and that the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine is not respected. And we call on Russia to respect the Minsk agreements, to use all its influence on the separatists to make them respect the ceasefire and to withdraw the support for the separatists.

I underline very much that NATO does not seek confrontation with Russia. NATO aspires for a more constructive and cooperative relationship with Russia.  But to be able to establish that, Russia must want it too.

And then Russia must respect the core values and the rule-based system that we have strived for so many years to establish in Europe. And one of the basic values is to respect the integrity and the sovereignty of all nations in Europe.

We discussed also, as the Chancellor mentioned, our development of our response force, a very high readiness force in NATO, which will enable NATO to deploy forces on short notice. To be able to protect all allies against any threat. And that is a response to the challenges we have seen in the east.

And Germany is doing a lot. Germany is part of the assurance measures, taking part in the air policing in the Baltic region.

And Germany is also key when it comes to developing this new high readiness spearhead force, which we are in the process of establishing. And we have an interim force in place for 2015, and Germany is lead in that force. So it just underlines the importance of Germany as a staunch ally. I also would like to commend Germany for what you are doing in fighting ISIL. The support you are giving to the fight against ISIL just underlines that all NATO allies in different ways take part in the international effort, and the international coalition against ISIL.

I also would like to underline that we have to invest more in defence. We agreed to do so at our Summit in Wales. Germany is such a key country in Europe. Germany has the strongest economy in Europe. Germany is providing leadership in so many areas in Europe. But we also are looking for German leadership when it comes to investing in defence. Because we need to invest in our defence to be able to protect all our allies, and to maintain the security and the stability of Europe.

So I thank you so much, it has been a great pleasure. And I look forward to continue to work with you.

Q & A

Q:  On Ukraine – NATO membership?

SECRETARY GENERAL:  When it comes to Ukraine, I would like to underline that it is a fundamental principle which all countries in Europe have subscribed to, and also that Russia has supported: and that is that all sovereign nations have the right to choose their own path. And that’s of course also valid for Ukraine.

But Ukraine has not applied for membership. What they have is that they have removed the decision they had earlier to be a non-bloc country. But they have underlined themself that they are now starting a process which aims at ending up with an application for becoming member of NATO. But they have underlined themself that this will take time. They have to reform. They have to also have a referendum. So we will of course assess an application for membership in NATO for Ukraine in the same way as we will assess any other application.

And that means they have to fulfil, meet the standards which NATO requires. Open, democratic societies, and also that it contributes to the stability and the security of Europe. This is something we’re going to assess when or if Ukraine is applying sometime into the future. They have underlined themself that that will take some time before they do so.