A senior NATO official said Thursday that Western Balkan countries do not face an “imminent threat” from war in Syria. Ukraineand are of strategic interest to the Western alliance.
NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana was in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, to meet local officials and visit the NATO-led KFOR mission.
Geoana denounced Russia’s “illogical and brutal war” in Ukraine and its “aggressive and malicious influence on the country.” Western Balkans.”
“We have a strategic interest (…) in the Western Balkans. I want to send a message of hope to all the people of the Western Balkans: in the end, we will all find ourselves in the European and Euro-Atlantic family,” he told the Associated Press.
Some Western Balkan countries are NATO members – Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia – while Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are partners.
Kosovo has said it will apply for membership in the Partnership for Peace, seen as a first step in the NATO accession process.
NATO troops have been present in Kosovo since 1999 after a war between Serbia and its former province ended with a 78-day NATO air campaign.
Geoana praised NATO members in the region increasing their defense spending as “a natural reaction when you see aggressive attacks.” Russia“, adding that NATO would “defend all allies and every square inch of territory.”
Geoana reconfirmed the alliance’s commitment to “stand by Ukraine for the long term.”
“They deserve our help. And this great nation deserves to be a free, independent and sovereign nation in Europe,” he said.
___
Semini reported from Tirana, Albania