Remarks

Secretary Pompeo, it’s great to have you back here at NATO, at the NATO Headquarters.

And many thanks for your strong personal commitment to this Alliance. I remember, just a few hours after you were appointed Secretary of State, you came directly to the NATO Foreign Ministerial. And we are grateful for your leadership.

And at the meeting today and tomorrow we will address several issues which are very important to our shared security.

We’ll start with a meeting with our colleagues from Ukraine and Georgia, addressing the security in the Black Sea and the situation in the Azov Sea. We will discuss transatlantic security, including the INF Treaty, and all Allies are extremely concerned about the new Russian missiles, and we call on Russia to urgently ensure full compliance with the INF Treaty, in a verifiable and transparent way.

Burden-sharing, but also how we can step up our efforts to fight terrorism, support the training mission of NATO in Iraq and our presence in Afghanistan are some of the other issues we’ll discuss.

Once again, welcome.