NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday that the key items on the day’s agenda at the heads of state meeting would be the fight against terrorism and fair burden sharing.
He also said that NATO would on Thursday decide on whether it will expand its support to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS (Daesh).
"... today, we will agree on NATO’s membership in the coalition," he said.
He said: “In a few hours, NATO leaders will gather here in Brussels for an important meeting at our new headquarters.
“We have two major items on our agenda: Stepping up NATO’s role in the fight against terrorism and fairer burden sharing in our alliance.”
He said NATO had been actively involved in the fight against terrorism for many years.
“Today, we will adopt an action plan to enhance NATO’s contributions. Our largest military operation ever was launched in Afghanistan in a direct response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. 13,000 NATO troops continue to train Afghan forces.
“We will assess our level of support and the future of the mission. Training local forces is one of the best weapons in the fight against terrorism. We are already training Iraqi forces. And our AWACS surveillance planes provide information to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS (Daesh).”
Today, we will decide to expand our support to the coalition. With more AWACS flight-time, more information sharing and air-to-air refueling. All 28 Allies are members of the Global Coalition and today, we will agree on NATO’s membership in the coalition.
“This will send a strong political message of NATO’s commitment to the fight against terrorism. And improve coordination within the coalition. But it does not mean that NATO will engage in combat operations,” he said.
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