NATO leaders discuss Brexit impact during summit

World Today

NATO leaders discuss Brexit impact during summit

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Britain’s exit from the European Union won’t affect its standing with the Trans-Atlantic Alliance.

NATO leaders are gathering in Poland for a biennial summit, amid a host of significant global security challenges.

CCTV’s Guy Henderson reports from Warsaw.

Tensions with Russia are still a pre-occupation at the NATO summit. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenburg is wary of both confrontation and cutting Moscow out.

A 4,000 strong multinational force has been given the formal go-ahead for deployment to Eastern Europe starting next year. In the meantime, the continent also looks to integrate its defense structures with an EU-NATO military cooperation deal, without Britain, the EU’s largest military force.

Britain’s decision to exit the European Union is an issue leaders here have had to address. Stoltenburg said it won’t affect the country’s relations with NATO. European Council president Donald Tusk warns it could have “serious geopolitical consequences.”

Britain’s outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron has reassured the U.K’s NATO allies.

Neither side wants another war after all.


Russia discontent with NATO’s implications

Moscow has dismissed NATO’s suggestion that Russia poses a threat to the West as contrived “anti-Russian hysteria.”

The Kremlin said it hopes common sense will prevail at the NATO summit in Warsaw.

CCTV’s Julia Lyubova reports from Moscow.

At this year’s NATO Summit in Warsaw, U.S. President Barack Obama announced the U.S. would deploy a thousand more troops to Poland. And that’s in addition to the multinational battalions the alliance plans to send to the Baltic states.

Poland and the Baltic states said they want a heightened NATO presence in their countries to prevent a repeat of what happened in Ukraine.

The annexation of Crimea happened in a matter of days. Since then, it has kept Russia’s neighbors on edge, nervous about Vladimir Putin’s next move.

NATO’s large-scaled military exercise in Poland has angered Moscow. The Kremlin said NATO is getting too close to Russia’s borders.

In January, Russia announced it would create three new divisions and bring five extra strategic nuclear missile regiments-all to counter a perceived threat from NATO. And earlier this week, Russian troops held military exercises in the country’s southern region of Volgograd, in a reminder of Russia’s efforts to bolster military readiness.

Although NATO suspended cooperation with Russia over the annexation of Crimea, Moscow has agreed to a Russia-NATO council next week, as both sides seek to avoid a military confrontation.


Amb. Kurt Volker on NATO summit, tensions with Russia

For more on the controversial mililtary exercises and NATO-Russia relations, CCTV America’s Mike Walter spoke to Amb. Kurt Volker, executive director of McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University.