NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the US’ European allies are united in seeing Russia as a “long-term threat” after he met with President Donald Trump at the White House, APA reports citing CNN.
“We all agree, in NATO, that Russia is the long-term threat to NATO territory, to the whole of the Euro-Atlantic territory,” Rutte told reporters outside the White House.
He added that “something is on the table for Russia” in terms of a peace deal with Ukraine.
“Ukrainians are really playing ball, and I think the ball is clearly in the Russian court now,” he said.
Rutte declined to get into details of what concessions Russia or Ukraine might be willing to offer, saying doing so would not be helpful to peace talks.
The secretary also addressed NATO spending, as Trump has long fixated on European nations not contributing the requisite 2% of their GDP to defense spending and said that requirement should be even higher. Rutte agreed, saying that “it has to be considerably higher than this famous 2%.”
“Clearly, with 2%, we cannot defend NATO territory,” Rutte added.
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