NATO defence ministers are set to meet in Brussels on Thursday as European allies face pressure from Washington to scale up their defence capabilities and support the United States in the aftermath of the war in Iran.<\/p>\n
In May, Washington announced that it would no longer provide certain air and naval assets to European allies in case of a conflict, as part of its push to increase defence spending in Europe and reduce the continent’s reliance on the United States.<\/p>\n
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is expected to reiterate Washington’s demands in Brussels.<\/p>\n
The meeting also comes as talks continue among European allies on a potential naval mission, led by France and Britain, to secure shipping through the Strait of Hormuz once hostilities have ended in the Iran war.<\/p>\n
Since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO allies for refusing to participate in the conflict.<\/p>\n
Depending on developments in the Middle East, participating allies could decide on such a mission at the upcoming NATO summit in Ankara in July.<\/p>\n
NATO defence ministers are also expected to discuss nuclear deterrence and support for war-torn Ukraine during Thursday’s meeting.<\/p>\n
The ministers’ meeting is expected to be followed by a pledging conference aimed at raising additional military support for Kiev, co-chaired by German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and UK Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NATO defence ministers are set to meet in Brussels on Thursday as European allies face pressure from Washington…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1297,2010,56,164,769,7,707,328,288],"class_list":["post-2300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-brussels","tag-defence-capabilities","tag-defence-spending","tag-european-allies","tag-european-defence","tag-nato","tag-nato-headquarters","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-president-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}