File Photo: King Philippe of Belgium, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, U.S. President Donald Trump, British Prime Minister Theresa May (from L to R, front) and other NATO member states leaders watch air show at the handover ceremony of the new NATO headquarters during a one-day NATO Summit, in Brussels, Belgium, May 25, 2017. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)
WASHINGTON, July 5 (Xinhua) -- U.S. envoy to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison told the media Thursday that the upcoming NATO summit is expected to see "deliverables" to counter Russia in burden-sharing, counter-terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq, and reform of the bloc's command structures.
In a teleconference concerning the attendance of U.S. President Donald Trump in the summit, Hutchison, U.S. permanent representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), said that "the major thing, the major deliverable, the major overall theme of this summit is going to be NATO's strength and unity."
"Everyone in our alliance has the same goal, and that is a strong deterrent; an alliance that is unified that can face any threats that any 1 of our 29 members might face," she said, noting "our major areas of deterrence would be Russia and the malign activities of Russia, the efforts to divide our democratic nation, INF Treaty violations."
She said the NATO members have gone through many of these areas, which "are now being addressed by NATO in a strengthened deterrence and defense," and will ratify their responses in the final declaration of the summit.
According to Hutchison, Trump will arrive in Brussels in the evening of July 10. He will later have a bilateral meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, along with U.S. secretaries of defense and state and the national security advisor, in order to "touch base and talk about what we're going to be doing."
Trump will then come over to the NATO headquarters for an opening ceremony of the summit, and has a meeting with all the other heads of state to discuss defense and deterrence issues.
On July 12, there will be a meeting between NATO heads of state and their counterparts of Georgia and Ukraine. There will also be a meeting of U.S. partners on Afghan mission before Trump leaves for a visit to Britain.
