The NATO Defense Ministerial kicked off earlier today with the defense ministers of the alliance to address pressing security issues including INF Treaty during the two-day meeting.

Speaking to reporters ahead of the start of the meeting, the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said “Today and tomorrow, NATO Defence Ministers will meet and address a wide range of pressing security issues.”
Stoltenberg further added that “Among them is the INF Treaty. Russia continues to violate the INF Treaty by deploying new intermediate-range nuclear capable missiles, the SSC-8 missiles. These missiles are hard to detect, mobile and can reach European cities, so this is something which is of great concern for all of us. We will continue to call on Russia to come back into compliance with the INF Treaty.”
“We will also address burden-sharing. I welcome the fact that across Europe and Canada we see now that Allies are stepping up, investing more in defence,” he said adding that “European Allies and Canada will have added 41 billion extra US dollars to their defence spending since 2016, over the last 2 years. And I expect this number to rise to 100 billion dollars by the end of next year. So we are making progress on burden-sharing.”
According to the NATO Secretary General the Defense Ministers will also discuss NATO missions and operations in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in Kosovo.