NATO leaders are leaning towards extending Jens Stoltenberg’s term as secretary-general amid mounting pessimism around the military alliance agreeing a successor ahead of next month’s summit in Lithuania, APA's London correspondent reports citing Financial Times.
It is noted that the intensifying debates over who should succeed Stoltenberg, whose current mandate ends in October, comes at a testing time for NATO.
“Russia is showing increased belligerence towards the west and has occupied about a fifth of Ukraine, there are internal divisions over Kyiv’s future relationship with NATO and China is rising as a global military power," says Financial Times.
That complex backdrop, and the difficulty of finding a candidate that satisfies all 31 alliance members, mean that the possibility of asking Stoltenberg to extend his mandate for a fourth time has emerged as a short-term compromise that delays the decision to next year, officials involved in the discussions told the Financial Times.
It is noted that the option to extend Stoltenberg comes after bids by Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen and British defense secretary Ben Wallace have so far failed to win unanimous backing in the face of a wide variety of demands from member states
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