Member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are holding a summit in The Hague, starting Tuesday.
NATO members are expected to approve a boost in defense spending.
Leaders, defense and foreign ministers of the 32 member states, along with representatives of NATO’s Indo-Pacific partners — Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand — are expected at the summit.
Looking forward to welcoming leaders to the #NATOsummit.
Together we will make #NATO stronger, fairer and more lethal so that we have everything we need to continue to protect our 1bn people. pic.twitter.com/80OLsnqG95
The Netherlands summit comes amid the shadow of the escalation in the Middle East and the ongoing war in Ukraine. Both crises are likely to be addressed during the session.
NATO countries are expected to vote in favor of increasing defense spending to 5% at the summit.
Getting NATO members to shell out more money in defense spending has been a key demand of US President Donald Trump, who is also expected to attend.
Mark Rutte, the chief of the military alliance, speaking before a summit that is likely to sign off a big new spending goal, said that European allies should not worry about the United States’ commitment to NATO.
The two-day gathering is intended to signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that NATO is united, despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s previous criticism of the alliance, and determined to expand and upgrade its defences to deter any attack from Moscow.
The war between Israel and Iran and the uncertain status of a ceasefire announced overnight by Trump make the summit much less predictable than Rutte – a former prime minister of the Netherlands hosting the gathering in his home city – and other NATO member countries would like.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he planned to meet Trump in The Hague – although Zelenskiy will not take part in the summit itself, as NATO officials have sought to avoid any clash between Trump and other leaders over the war in Ukraine.
Zelenskiy told a Sky News interview broadcast on Tuesday that the two leaders’ teams were working on organisational details and the timing of the meeting.
Asked about the possibility of an end to the three-year war in Ukraine, Rutte said: “I cannot predict when it will happen.” He also praised Trump for engaging with Putin.
Russia has cited its neighbour’s desire to join the U.S.-led transatlantic alliance as one of the reasons why it invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Russia denies any plan to attack NATO, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “largely a wasted effort” to assure the 32-member alliance of this because it was determined to demonise Russia.
“It is an alliance created for confrontation … It is not an instrument of peace and stability,” he said. NATO was founded by Western countries in 1949 to resist the threat from the communist Soviet Union.
