Remarks

President Pellegrini,
Dear Peter,
Welcome back to the NATO Headquarters.
You have been here before but then as Prime Minister, now you are back as President of Slovakia.
And I would like to start by congratulating you on your election as President.

Slovakia is a dedicated NATO Ally, you contribute to our collective defence, our shared security in many different ways.
You host the NATO battlegroup in Slovakia, you contribute forces, troops to our Forward presence in Latvia.
And you are also one of the Allies which are now spending 2% of GDP on defence.
This is something that is important and I welcome very much.

We will in our meeting discuss the preparations for the upcoming NATO Summit in Washington.
This will be an historic Summit, because we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of our Alliance, but we  will also make important decisions for the future on deterrence and defence to ensure that we have the capabilities, the forces, the readiness to deter any aggression.
The purpose of NATO is not to fight the war but prevent war, to preserve peace and we do that by credible deterrence.

I welcome also that now 23 Allies are spending 2% of GDP and this shows that we take deterrence and defence extremely serious in our Alliance.
We will also of course, address Ukraine and I expect Allies to agree a lead role for NATO in providing security assistance and training and also a long-term commitment because the premise that the stronger our support to Ukraine is, the sooner this war can end because President Putin believes that he can wait us out.
If he realises that they cannot win on the battlefield, that increases the likelihood for a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine.
I also welcome that Slovakia supports Ukraine territorial integrity and sovereignty.

And so actually, you today also repeated your support for instance, the Czech-led ammunition initiative.
So there are many issues to be discussed.
I welcome you and I'm looking forward our meeting.