US President Donald Trump has called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) a “bulwark of international peace and security,” as US-Russia ties fray over Syria.
Trump, who repeatedly denounced NATO as outdated and obsolete on the campaign trail last year, made the remarks on Wednesday after meeting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in the Oval Office in the White House in Washington, DC.
“The secretary-general and I had a productive discussion on what more NATO can do in the fight against terrorism,” Trump said during a news conference with Stoltenberg.
“I complained about that a long time ago and they made a change and now they do fight terrorism. I said it was obsolete,” he added. “It is not longer obsolete.”
During the 2016 campaign and after his election, Trump has repeatedly called the United States’ commitment to the military alliance into question, demanding allies pay more toward collective defense.
The Republican…