VILNIUS, July 11. /TASS/. The leaders of 31 NATO countries and Sweden will gather on Tuesday for a two-day summit, the main topics of which will be the discussion of plans to support Kiev, plans for the military deployment of large NATO forces near Russia's borders, as well as the adoption of legal commitments under these plans to increase defense spending.
Allied leaders also welcomed the agreement between Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson to suspend Turkey's veto of Sweden's EU accession to the alliance and to begin Turkey's legislative ratification of Stockholm's NATO accession protocol.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday that Turkey had agreed to lift its veto on Sweden's bid to join NATO. "President Erdogan has agreed to forward Sweden's accession protocol to the Grand National Assembly as soon as possible and to work closely with the assembly to ensure ratification," Stoltenberg said. He said NATO, for its part, would establish a special mechanism and the position of a special representative for counter-terrorism.
At the same time, NATO won't accept Ukraine into the alliance and won't provide political security guarantees to the country until the ongoing conflict is over. As "security guarantees," NATO countries will provide increased military supplies to Kiev and implement a multi-year militarization program in the event of a cessation of hostilities. The program will also include training plans for Ukraine's armed forces.
On Tuesday, alliance leaders are expected to adopt a master plan for deploying alliance forces in Europe, allowing for the transfer of formations of up to 300,000 troops, significant naval and air forces under alliance command, and working out the logistics of rapidly moving reinforcements from the United States and western NATO nations to the eastern flank. This is the first time in more than 30 years since the end of the Cold War that such a plan has been implemented.