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Austria has no plans to join NATO, foreign minister says

Austria has been participating in NATO’s Partnership for Peace program since 1995 and intends to continue this interaction, Alexander Schallenberg noted

VIENNA, July 10. /TASS/. Austria does not intend to join NATO but plans on cooperating with the alliance, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said.

"Militarily, we are a neutral country. We do not plan on joining NATO. For us, the architecture of European security consists not only of NATO but also of the European Union and the OSCE," he told ORF Radio.

Austria has been participating in NATO’s Partnership for Peace program since 1995 and intends to continue this interaction, he noted.

Schallenberg was also invited to a NATO summit in Washington on July 9-11 but did not go because of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Vienna. "He is accompanied by [Indian] Foreign Minister [Subrahmanyam] Jaishankar so I must be here," the top diplomat added.

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