Article author:
Reuters
Beren Carreno and Intilandauro
Madrid — Spain joins NATO at a summit in Madrid on Thursday from the Alliance in North Africa and Sahel. Encourage them to consider a major role. , And the Spanish Foreign Minister said intervention in Mali should not be ruled out.
NATO has little willingness to do so, diplomats say, but allies such as Spain and Italy are south as they have embarked on the largest expansion of defense since the Cold War to the East. Ignored worried about threats to border risks.
NATO's 30 leaders will hold a final summit session focusing on the South on Thursday morning after nearly two days of talks dominated by the Russian war in Ukraine. ..
Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Alvarez said Mali as needed after the Alliance Summit statement quoted terrorism in a "hybrid threat" that could be used by hostile forces. It undermines its stability, stating that it did not rule out NATO intervention in.
"If it is necessary and it poses a threat to our security, we will do it," he told the local radio station RNE. "We do not rule it out."
Western forces are concerned about the surge in violence in Mali. In Mali, the country's dominant military administration, backed by Russia's civilian military contractor Wagner Group, is fighting a Muslim rebellion spilling into neighboring countries in the African region. Sahel.
France, which has long had a concentration of military policies in the southern part of NATO, first deployed 2,400 people in Mali almost 10 years ago after worsening relations with the military administration in February. He said he would withdraw his army.
In January 2020, then US President Donald Trump attempted to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to include Middle Eastern countries, as European troops fight Islamic extremists. Insisted that more should be done. His proposal did not get support.
At the request of Spain, with the support of Italy, NATO's new 10-year master document, "Strategic Concepts," cites terrorism and migration as elements to monitor, with the southern side. Pointed out as a new source of information. Risk to stability.
Spain's 2029 Goal
NATO was created in 1949 to protect the Soviet Union, mainly facing east after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. I am enjoying a new sense of purpose.
At the summit on Wednesday, the alliance saw Moscow as the greatest "direct threat" to western security and agreed on a plan to modernize Kib's needy army.
We also invited Sweden and Finland to promise to increase the number of combat units on the eastern side by a factor of seven from 2023.
The US-led alliance also faces many new demands, from countering Russia and China to developing defenses in space and computer networks.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has shown his determination that Spain will play a bigger role in the decades after the lowest defense costs in NATO, although it is five years behind NATO's goal. Madrid said it would eventually reach the alliance's goals.
"The government has promised to raise its defense budget to nearly 2% of GDP by 2029," he told state television station TVE. All NATO members have promised to move to defense spending equivalent to 2% of GDP by 2024 in 2014.
(Additional report by Sabine Siebold, Humeira Pamuk, Aislinn Laing, Andrea Shalal, written by Robin Emmott)
