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Added on the 26/04/2022 18:24:18 - Copyright : AFPTV - First images
The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba deliver remarks after a NATO foreign ministers meeting. IMAGES
NATO foreign ministers meet for the NATO-Ukraine Council foreign ministers' session. One of the issues on the agenda is military aid to Kyiv. It comes on the 75th anniversary of the alliance, menaced by an aggressive Russia and the spectre of Donald Trump's return to power. IMAGES
A meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization kicks off in Brussels, with the US-led defence alliance's foreign ministers set to discuss NATO's ongoing backing for Ukraine against Russia amid doubts over US support and a bloody stalemate on the ground. There are fears that a lack of adequate support from the West -- at a time that it is distracted by the Israel-Hamas war -- could end up forcing Kyiv to seek a compromise with Russian President Vladimir Putin from a position of weakness. IMAGES
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says he is "confident" the United States would keep up weapons deliveries to Ukraine, despite a political blockage in Washington. SOUNDBITE
NATO members have agreed that their established goal of spending two percent of their national output on defence will become a minimum level, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg tells reporters. "Eleven allies now reach or exceed the two percent benchmark," he says at the end of the first day of the NATO summit in Vilnius. "And we expect this number will rise substantially next year. Today, allies made an enduring commitment to invest at least two percent of gross domestic product annually in defence." SOUNDBITE
U.S. President Barack Obama attends an outdoor arrival ceremony in heavy rain, as the first sitting U.S. president to visit Laos. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).