LAHORE MIRROR (Monitoring Desk)– NATO is considering a longer-term military posture in eastern Europe to strengthen its defences, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday, as tensions remained high over Russia’s military build-up near Ukraine.
“We are considering more longer-term adjustments to our posture, our presence in the eastern part of the alliance. No final decision has been made on that but there is a process now going on within NATO”, he told reporters in Brussels.
“If Russia really wants less NATO close to the borders, they get the opposite,” Stoltenberg said at a news conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda, referring to NATO’s response to deploy battlegroups on its eastern territory following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
From the Baltics to the Black Sea, NATO’s troop deployments have been intentionally light, officials say, to try to deter but not provoke any further Russian aggression. Hungary and Slovakia have been mentioned by Western officials as potential hosts for NATO troops, although no decisions have been made.
SOURCE: REUTERS
