NATO Summit Starts to Highlight Unity Against Russia

KABUL: (Middle East Press) NATO leaders are holding a summit in the UK in a bid to show unity against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine, after France suspended delivery of a warship to Moscow despite a surprise peace plan put forward by the Kremlin.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko held talks with US President Barack Obama and other Western leaders on Thursday on the conflict with pro-Russia rebels in Ukraine ahead of the start of a NATO summit.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen has warned that Russian intervention in Ukraine is the most serious security threat since the Cold War, one which the 28 member-states ignore at their peril.

US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to stand together in support of Ukraine against Russia in a joint statement in the Times newspaper on Thursday.

“Russia has ripped up the rulebook with its illegal, self-declared occupation of Crimea and its troops on Ukrainian soil threatening and undermining a supreme nation state,” the two leaders wrote in an op-ed piece.

“We should support Ukraine’s right to settle on its own democratic future and continue our efforts to enhance Ukrainian capabilities.”

Poroshenko and Western leaders are to hold a session of the NATO-Ukraine Council, set up after the country became an alliance partner in 1997, the AFP news agency reported.

The meeting will “send a clear signal of their support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and that the obligation is on Russia to de-escalate the situation,” a British government source said.

“The US is certainly pushing its other NATO partners to increase their defence budgets,” he noted.