Poland, Baltics will be protected: Nato chief

WARSAW: Nato does not consider Russia an enemy but would respond to an attack on Poland and the Baltic states, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview published on Tuesday.

The interview came as Turkey threatened to block new Nato plans to defend the Baltic states and Poland, presumably from a Russian attack, unless Western powers recognised a Kurdish militant group as terrorists.

“Through the presence of Nato forces in Poland and the Baltic states we are sending a very strong signal to Russia: if there is any attack on Poland and the Baltic states, the entire alliance will respond,” Stoltenberg told Poland’s Rzeczpospolita newspaper as the alliance met for a summit riven by tensions in London.

“We do not define Russia in this way (as an enemy),” Stoltenberg said, adding that “we must be certain that there is no possibility that what we saw in Ukraine, meaning Russia’s armed invasion of its neighbour, could be repeated against a Nato member”.