Joint press conference by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg with Kaja Kallas, Prime Minister of Estonia, 27 June 2024.
🗣 | NATO Secretary General:
Prime Minister Kallas,
Dear Kaja,
Welcome back to NATO Headquarters.
It’s great to see you again.
And thank you for your strong, personal commitment to our transatlantic Alliance and your leadership.
Estonia leads by example, by investing more than 3% of GDP on defence and also by providing unprecedented support to Ukraine and you have committed to continue the support.
And you also lead on the issue of innovation and cyber including with the NATO Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn.
So Estonia is contributing to our shared security, to our collective defence in many different ways.
And therefore, Estonia is a highly valued NATO Ally.
Then, of course, NATO supports Estonia also in many different ways, with a multinational battlegroup in Tapa, led by the United Kingdom, helping to deter any aggression against Estonia.
NATO fighter jets patrol the skies over Estonia and Spain will soon deploy air defence battery, a NASAM battery to your country to strengthen your air defences.
Then I would also like to add that the fact that we are now investing more across the whole Alliance also make NATO stronger to reinforce Estonia if needed.
We have several 100,000 troops on high readiness.
And we also have Finland and Sweden as members and of course with Finland and Sweden as members of NATO that has strengthened NATO, it has also made it much more easier to move equipment and forces into the Baltic region if needed.
Today in our meeting, we discussed the final preparations for the NATO Summit in Washington, which will take place in just two weeks’ time.
The main issue there will be our support for Ukraine.
President Putin believes that he can wait us out.
It is important that we demonstrate that that's not the case, that we are ready to stand by Ukraine for the long haul and therefore, I expect NATO leaders to agree that NATO will lead the coordination of security assistance and training for Ukraine with a new NATO command in Wiesbaden to coordinate training and the provision of security assistance to Ukraine.
And also that Allied leaders will agree a long term pledge of support to Ukraine.
This will provide Ukraine with greater predictability for the long haul.
I also expect leaders to send a clear message on Ukraine's path towards NATO membership.
We will of course also address our own deterrence and defence.
We have agreed new, more ambitious defence plans.
Allies are delivering more forces, high readiness, investing in high end capabilities and this year, 23 Allies are going to invest more than 2% of GDP on defence, which is great progress compared to where we were just a few years ago.
We will also address our global partners, especially our Indo Pacific partners and the European Union. The war in Ukraine demonstrates that our security is not regional, it is global, because we see how Iran, North Korea are providing weapons, drones, ammunition to Russia to enable them to conduct the war of aggression against Ukraine.
But we also see how China is propping up the Russian war economy enabling Russia to support –to conduct a war of aggression against Ukraine.
So therefore, it is important that we meet with our Asia Pacific partners as we will do at the Summit in Washington.
So once again, Prime Minister Kallas, it's great to have you here.
It's great to see how Estonia is really stepping up and investing heavily and doing more for NATO and your strong personal commitment to NATO.
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