Brussels Summit Statement

In our original announcement of President Reagan's visit, we said that this special session of the North Atlantic Council would enable the participants both to hear at first hand of the results of the meeting between President Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev and to consult together on the wider and longer-term process of strengthening security and improving East-West relations of which that meeting was an important part.

That is very much how it turned out. The high level of attendance confirms the importance allied governments attached to this occasion; and President Reagan was left in no doubt of his colleagues' appreciation of his visit here in the middle of a quite exceptionally long and busy day.

The President, as you know, is flying straight from here to address a Joint Session of the US Congress. It would be wrong for me to anticipate his report by commenting in any detail on what he was able to say in confidence to his colleagues. But you will have read the Joint Statement issued in Geneva, and I don't think that I would be revealing any secrets if I were to say that the President was able to report in positive terms on important aspects of what had transpired in Geneva, and that allied reactions were strongly supportive.

Geneva is not the end of a process; but, we hope, the beginning of a new and more constructive stage. Alliance consultations, which have been very close and productive since the resumption of US-Soviet arms control negotiations in Geneva at the beginning of this year, will be equally important in the future; and the next major occasion will be the Ministerial meeting of the North Atlantic Council in December.

President Reagan's visit, and this successful high-level meeting of the Council, underline the determination of allied governments to work together to keep the peace and to improve East-West relations.
 

View the Statement from NATO Archives