NATO foreign ministers meet in Washington to celebrate the alliance's 70th anniversary amid rifts between members over security and trade issues.
. He hailed NATO's deterrence of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and said the alliance was well positioned to move forward as it confronts new and evolving challenges.
And, they renewed demands for Russia to end its annexation of Crimea, release Ukrainian sailors and ships it seized in a confrontation last year in the Sea of Azov and respect the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The U.S. will withdraw from the 1987 treaty in August unless Russia returns to compliance.
Pompeo said every NATO member had an obligation to explain to its citizens the need to increase their defense budgets and rejected what he called "tired arguments" about public opposition to such spending. Stoltenberg, In an address to Congress on Wednesday and again on Thursday, acknowledged serious divisions within the alliance and called for bigger defense budgets to cope with global challenges such as Russian assertiveness, the core reason NATO was created in Washington 70 years ago this week.
In a sign of rising tensions between the two capitals, Turkey's foreign ministry disputed the State Department's account of the meeting, which said Pompeo had warned of "potentially devastating consequences" of unilateral Turkish military action in northern Syria as well as consequences for buying the S-400.
"Turkey must choose," Pence said Wednesday. "Does it want to remain a critical partner in the most successful military alliance in the history of the world or does it want to risk the security of that partnership by making reckless decisions that undermine our alliance?"
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