NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has held holding a press-conference to sum up the results of the two-day summit of the bloc's leaders.
During the speech, Stoltenberg noted that Donald Trump's insistence to increase defense spendings in the bloc has its effect on the NATO member-states.
"We had a very frank discussion on burden-sharing… The fact that we had this open discussion has also clearly stated that we will redouble our efforts and it also shows that clear message from President Trump is having an impact," Stoltenberg told reporters when asked to comment on the US president's threat to leave NATO unless its member-states increase defense spending by up to 2 percent of the GDP.
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The secretary-general welcomed the upcoming meeting between Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, saying that "we should sit down and talks to Russia."
"I welcome the fact that he [Trump] will meet with President Putin because I have been strongly in favor of a NATO dialogue with Russia," Stoltenberg told CNN. "As long as we are united, as long as we are firm in our approach to Russia, we should also be able to sit down and talk to Russia."
The NATO chief also said that establishing the dialogue in a situation of high tensions is particularly important.
"We have more military presence around the world. We need to avoid incidents, accidents, miscalculations," Stoltenberg said.
The day before, while speaking about Russia, the senior official urged not to isolate Russia because of the problems existing between Moscow and NATO member-states, stressing the necessity of dialogue.
