Stoltenberg urges NATO allies to 'stay the course' on Ukraine

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00:00 In other news, NATO foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels today.

00:03 Speaking there, the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he was confident the

00:07 United States would keep up weapons deliveries to Ukraine, despite a political blockage in

00:13 Washington.

00:14 We see intense fighting along the front line and we have seen waves of drone attacks against

00:22 the Ukrainian cities and we need to be prepared for more fighting and also more air and missile

00:29 attacks against Ukrainian cities.

00:34 This just makes it even more important that NATO Allies continue to support Ukraine.

00:41 I expect also at the meeting that Allies will reiterate their strong support for Ukraine.

00:46 We'll also meet with Foreign Minister Koleba.

00:48 For more on this, let's bring in our Brussels correspondent, Dave Keating.

00:53 Dave, Stoltenberg's comments come at a time when support for Ukraine is wavering.

00:58 How much is that going to be colouring today's meeting?

01:04 It's definitely the elephant in the room today.

01:07 This is the first time that foreign ministers have come together in this format since the

01:11 big Vilnius summit of NATO country leaders over the summer.

01:15 And since then, of course, we've had the outbreak of the Israel-Palestine war, but we've also

01:20 had the lack of success of Ukraine's summer offensive.

01:25 And all of that has fed into a fear that Ukraine is falling off the agenda, that support for

01:31 Ukraine in the West is wavering.

01:34 We've seen Republicans blocking aid to Ukraine in Washington.

01:38 We've seen Hungary's Viktor Orban here in Brussels blocking 500 million in military

01:45 aid to Ukraine and also 50 billion in long-term aid from the EU.

01:50 He's demanding a discussion before he would sign off on that on really whether the EU

01:55 should be continuing to arm Ukraine.

01:58 Then we've had victories recently for candidates in Slovakia, in the Netherlands, who want

02:05 the West to end support for Ukraine and who have been friendly with Russian President

02:09 Vladimir Putin.

02:10 It is not a good time for this alliance.

02:14 And certainly the foreign ministers today at NATO will be keen to demonstrate that their

02:19 commitment to Ukraine is unwavering.

02:22 And that's what we saw there from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg as he was entering

02:27 just about two hours ago.

02:29 But he's putting a brave face on a bad situation.

02:31 It is certainly true that Ukraine has fallen off the agenda.

02:34 We saw that last month when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise visit to

02:39 NATO here in Brussels, his first time doing so.

02:43 If he had done that one month earlier, it would have probably gotten a lot of attention.

02:47 But because it came just shortly after October 7th, of course, the world's attention was

02:52 still very much focused on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

02:55 That is the difficulty that the Ukrainian foreign minister will find himself in today,

03:00 how to put this back on the agenda.

03:02 Right.

03:03 So the Ukraine issue, the big elephant in the room, as you say.

03:06 What are the other big issues that are going to be on the table today?

03:10 Well, Secretary General Stoltenberg was also hoping that today Sweden would become officially

03:17 a member of NATO.

03:20 He expressed his disappointment coming in this morning that that will not be the case

03:24 because Turkey is dragging its feet on ratifying Sweden's NATO membership.

03:29 Of course, they had reached a deal with Turkey that they said they were going to pass it.

03:34 But since then, they have been being very slow on that.

03:37 Also problems in Hungary.

03:39 So there's definite disgruntlement, let's say, about that.

03:43 But he put a kind of brave face on it this morning.

03:45 They're also going to be talking about relations with China.

03:48 Stoltenberg said he wouldn't describe China as an enemy, but he said there are concerns

03:52 for NATO about China's growing strength in the Asia-Pacific region.

03:57 They're also going to be talking about Iran launching attacks via proxies in the region

04:03 and the threat that Iran might pose to the West.

04:06 Lots of other issues to discuss today.

04:09 Some of them related to Ukraine, some of them not.

04:11 But of course, then in the background, you have the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

04:15 It's not going to be directly discussed today.

04:17 It's not yet any kind of NATO mission, any kind of NATO competence.

04:23 But certainly that is the conflict that is informing all others and will certainly be

04:27 informing their discussion of Iran.

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