Secretary Antony J. Blinken And NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte After Their Meeting

SECRETARY GENERAL RUTTE: Yes, good morning, and I really would like to welcome Tony Blinken. I am so happy that you are here. Visiting is a real honor. We will have a NAC meeting later on. We just had a bilat meeting. And can I just say that the U.S. continued over the last four years to help NATO to do more on burden sharing, to increase spending also on the European and Canadian sides of NATO. Two new members have joined the Alliance in the last couple of years. And maybe most importantly, also thanks to American leadership, Ukraine has prevailed and Russia has not won.

And obviously, we have to do more to make sure that Ukraine can stay in the fight and is able to roll back as much as possible the Russian onslaught and prevent Putin from being successful in Ukraine. Particularly this is something also discussed this morning because now we see North Koreans being active in Ukraine, and this is coming at a cost, of course. These North Korean soldiers present an extra threat to Ukraine and will increase the potential for Putin to do harm.

But at the same time, he has to pay for this and he is paying for this by technology, for example missile technology going to North Korea, and that is presenting a threat not only to the European side of NATO but also to the U.S. mainland, to South Korea, to Japan. And it is not - not just North Korea being active. We know for some time that China through sanctions circumvention, through dual-use goods being delivered into Russia, is helping the war effort. And of course, Iran is doing this through drone technology and other deliveries into Russia. And here Russia is paying in money, and this helps Iran to continue its efforts to destabilize the Middle East and even beyond the Middle East.

So what you see here, and this is what we discussed this morning, that the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific, these are not two separate theaters. This is all getting more and more combined, and what is happening in Ukraine has an impact now globally. And that means that we have to stay the course, that we have to ramp up defense production on the U.S. side, here in Europe, that we have to do more in terms of spending, and that we have to do more to make sure that Ukraine can prevail.

But again, Tony, you have been four years in this role. You have been a huge support for NATO. You have visited many times. You have many friends here. I really want to thank you for your leadership, of course, so far, but also over the next two months we will need you in that role. And thank you for being here and being the man you are. Thank you so much.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you so much. Thank you, Mark. Well, it's always very good to be at NATO. And as Mark said, not exactly our first visit. In fact, I think we have an apartment here now so that we can take advantage of all these visits. And we always feel very much at home. But I have to say first of all we're so gratified to have the Alliance in such strong, capable hands with Secretary General Rutte. And this going forward to me is a point of tremendous confidence for the Alliance and for everything that we need to do together. We had a very productive discussion today about our ongoing support for Ukraine in the face of an ongoing Russian aggression, as well this added element now of DPRK North Korean forces injected into the battle and now quite literally in combat, which demands and will get a firm response.

We see increasingly the indivisibility of security between and among these different theaters - the Euro-Atlantic theater, the Indo-Pacific theater, the Middle East - and it's critical that we find ways to work ever more closely together. One of the things that NATO has done in recent years is to strengthen its partnership with Indo-Pacific partners, and we'll do more of that in the weeks and months ahead.

But I think we also took account of an Alliance that has a lot of work to do in terms of continuing to strengthen its defense industrial base, to make sure that its spending is focused on the necessary capabilities. We're at a place now where 23 of the NATO Allies are at the at or above the 2 percent of GDP mark on defense spending, which is good, but we want to make sure that that spending is focused where it needs to be focused. So we had a very productive discussion about that.

And I'm very much looking forward to meeting with all of the NATO partners in the North Atlantic Council right now and to continuing these conversations throughout the course of this day. We'll be back for the foreign ministers meeting in just a few weeks time. We have a very intense and important agenda over the next couple of months. And as I said to the secretary general, President Biden fully intends to drive through the tape and use every day to continue to do what we've done over these last four years, which is strengthen this Alliance that's so critical to the security of the United States and security of countries throughout Europe. And we will do that and as well to continue to shore up everything we're doing for Ukraine to make sure that it can effectively defend itself against this Russian aggression.

Thanks very much, Mark.