BRUSSELS, June 16 (Portal) – NATO defense ministers on Friday failed to agree on new plans for how the alliance would respond to a Russian attack, and a diplomat accused Turkey of blocking them.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said ministers reviewed the plans – the first since the end of the Cold War and boosted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – at a two-day meeting in Brussels and were closer to an agreement.
However, a diplomat said Turkey has blocked consent to the wording of the geographic locations, including with regard to Cyprus. The diplomat added that there was still a chance of finding a solution before the NATO summit in Vilnius in mid-July.
Turkey’s diplomatic mission to NATO said it was wrong to comment on a secret NATO document, adding only that “the usual process of consultations and assessments among allies continues.”
The so-called regional plans consist of thousands of pages of secret military plans detailing how the Alliance would respond to a Russian attack.
The creation of the documents means a fundamental change. For decades, NATO had seen no need for large-scale defense plans as it fought minor wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and felt that post-Soviet Russia no longer posed an existential threat.
But with Europe’s bloodiest war since 1945 raging just beyond its borders in Ukraine, the alliance is now warning that it must plan well before a conflict with a peer like Moscow erupts.
NATO will also provide guidance to nations on improving their forces and logistics.
“Although regional plans have not been officially endorsed today, we expect these plans will be part of a set of deliverables for the Vilnius summit in July,” a senior US official told Portal.
Reporting by Sabine Siebold and Andrew Gray, editing by Charlotte Van Campenhout and Angus MacSwan
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