WASHINGTON: Senior US lawmakers said they wanted Hungary to immediately approve Sweden‘s accession to Nato, suggesting on Thursday, a week after Turkey’s approval, that Budapest risks permanent damage to its relationship with Washington if it does not act.Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ben Cardin said he had “deep concerns” over theContinue Reading
BRUSSELS: Nato is launching its largest exercise since the Cold War, rehearsing how U.S. troops could reinforce European allies in countries bordering Russia and on the alliance’s eastern flank if a conflict were to flare up with a “near-peer” adversary. Some 90,000 troops are due to join the Steadfast DefenderContinue Reading
BRUSSELS: Nato announced Wednesday that it would help buy up to 1,000 Patriot missiles so that allies can better protect their territory as Russia ramps up its air assault on Ukraine.Nato’s Support and Procurement Agency said it will support a group of nations, including Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain,Continue Reading
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Tuesday that the military has seized the initiative on the battlefield in Ukraine after repelling Kyiv’s counteroffensive and is well positioned to achieve Moscow’s goals.Putin’s speech at a meeting with top military brass came a day after he presented documents to Russia’s Central ElectionContinue Reading
MUMBAI: A report by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) on Monday states that the trend of countries sharing nuclear weapons is gathering momentum, and will increase in the coming years.Collectively, the world’s estimated 12,512 nuclear warheads belong to just nine countries. However, there are more than two dozen additionalContinue Reading
BRUSSELS: Nato allies condemned a decision by Russia on Tuesday to withdraw from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, a key post-Cold War agreement, and said they would suspend its operation in response. Russia formally withdrew from the security treaty, which limited key categories of conventional armed forces,Continue Reading
ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, in his strongest comments yet on the Gaza conflict, said on Wednesday the Palestinian militant group Hamas was not a terrorist organisation but a liberation group fighting to protect Palestinian lands.NATOmember Turkey condemned the civilian deaths caused by Hamas’s Oct. 7 rampage in southern Israel,Continue Reading
YEREVAN: Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Sunday took a veiled swipe at long-standing ally Russia, calling his country’s current foreign security systems “ineffective”.Pashinyan’s nationally televised comments signalled a major foreign policy shift away from Moscow, where criticism of Armenia has also grown.“The systems of external security in which ArmeniaContinue Reading
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said on Tuesday that Russia already is in the process of shifting some short-range nuclear weapons to neighbouring Belarus, a move that Duda said will shift the security architecture of the region and the entire Nato military alliance. Both Russian President Putin and his Belarusian counterpartContinue Reading
LONDON: The Indo-Pacific region and the broader geopolitical context were among the topics on the agenda for talks when British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hosted US President Joe Biden at 10 Downing Street in London on Monday.The US leader arrived in the UK ahead of a North Atlantic Treaty OrganisationContinue Reading