Off the wire
• Urgent: UN General Assembly kicks off special session on combating illegal drug use  • China Focus: Xi calls for steady development of Sino-U.S. ties  • Chinese envoy to visit Syria  • Baidu to further expand mapping service abroad  • Luneng vow to reach Asian Champions League knockout stage  • Spain negotiates new deadline for deficit target: reports  • Former mayor of Hohhot prosecuted for graft  • Marseille sack coach Michel  • China exposes 100 offshore NGOs  • Turkish warplanes strike PKK targets in northern Iraq  
You are here: 　 Home

NATO chief welcomes cooperation with EU over refugee crisis responses

Xinhua, April 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday welcomed the close cooperation between NATO and the European Union(EU) in response to the refugee and migrant crisis.

He made the remarks ahead of the EU Defence Ministers meeting in Luxembourg, which was a part of the ongoing meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council of the EU.

Stoltenberg said that NATO ships deployed in the Aegean Sea through surveillance and reconnaissance missions are "providing real-time information to the Turkish coastguard, to the Greek coastguard and also the EU border agency Frontex."

The NATO chief said that the upcoming NATO Summit in Warsaw and the EU Summit in June will provide a very good platform for cooperation between NATO and the EU.

"We will look into how we can expand that cooperation," he said, adding that "NATO stands ready to provide support to the new government of national accord" in Libya.

Talking about the NATO-Russia Council, which will take place on Wednesday, Stoltenberg highlighted that it will be the first NRC meeting since 2014 and said that the crisis in and around Ukraine, military activity, transparency, risk reductions and Afghanistan will be among the issues discussed. Endit