NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed that NATO leaders at the summit in the Belgian capital are determined to strengthen the military alliance to defeat ISIS extremist group and combat terrorism, stressing that they also work to achieve peace. They stressed that it is considered one of the alliance’s major priorities during the current period.
Stoltenberg said, in response to a question to "Arabs today", the most important outcome of the Atlantic summit is an international understanding on the formation of a special cell to coordinate over the ways to eliminate terrorism during the coming period in addition to strengthening the military role of "NATO" in the military operations conducted by the alliance’s member states.
According to sources, the NATO summit scheduled to be held on Thursday aims to send a clear message that the war against terrorism took a different dimension, stressing the need for strengthening cooperation between the member states during the coming period to achieve more progress and to eliminate the terrorist groups as soon as possible.
Trump came to Brussels on his first foreign trip as president to push NATO allies to take on a more active role, having dubbed the Cold War-era alliance "obsolete" for failing to focus on the threat from Islamist terrorism. Arriving in the city on Wednesday, Trump condemned Monday's deadly bomb attack in Manchester and expressed his fear on how dangerous the threat was and that the fight against terror had to be won.
The Manchester pop concert bomber deliberately targeted young fans of US pop star Ariana Grande in Monday night's deadly attack. Of the 22 victims killed, the youngest identified so far by police was eight-years-old. Another was aged 15. All 28 allies have individually joined the anti-IS coalition of more than 60 countries, but NATO as an institution has not followed suit until now, despite intense pressure from Washington.
Diplomatic sources say that some member states such as France, Germany, and Italy had opposed such a move for fear that the alliance would be dragged into a ground war and risk relations with Arab powers. Stoltenberg said that NATO would expand the role of its AWACS surveillance planes in supporting anti-IS operations and step up its training programs in Iraq.
A special cell would be set up at NATO headquarters in Brussels to coordinate anti-terror intelligence and planning, he said. He said the allies would also meet Tusk's demands to share more of the security burden and reaffirm a commitment to spend two percent of annual GDP on defense.