President Obama brushed aside suggestions that the Brexit vote could lead to the end of Europe as a western defense alliance and called on NATO leaders to remain united against Russian aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere.
After delivering a somber statement on the police slayings in Dallas, the president Friday morning shifted focus to discuss the task at hand – the NATO Summit and Britain’s decision to leave the European Union and the uncertainty surrounding it.
Flanked by European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Obama flatly dismissed predictions that the Brexit vote would lead the “entire edifice” of integration to crumble or damage the transatlantic relationship.
“Let me just say, as is often the case in moments of change, this kind of hyperbole is misplaced,” he said during a visit to Warsaw at the beginning of the NATO summit.
Before the Brexit vote, Tusk and Juncker had previusly predicted that Brexit could be the “end of the West.”
Based on discussions with British Prime Minister David Cameron, Obama said he is “absolutely confident that the U.K. and the European Union will work together in a pragmatic fashion to ensure the U.K.’s transition is orderly and smooth.”
“No one has an interest in protracted adversarial negotiations. Everybody has an interest in minimizing any disruptions,” he said.
Top on the Friday’s agenda is the formal approval of a NATO agreement to deploy four battalions and 3,000 to 4,000 troops to the Baltic states and eastern Poland on a rotating basis to bolster a security presence there as a bulwark against Russian aggression.
In a op-ed published in the London Financial Times ahead of the NATO summit, Obama’s last before leaving office, the president pledged to reaffirm our “determination” to defend every NATO ally and specifically pledged that the West would continue to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty by keeping sanctions on Moscow until it fully complies with a ceasefire agreement.
“We need to bolster the defense of our allies in Central and Eastern Europe, strengthen deterrence and boost our resilience against new threats, including cyber attacks,” Obama said.
Critics of the NATO deployment of troops say it is too minimal to deter Russian interference while Moscow argues that NATO is acting as the aggressor by helping fortify former Soviet territory.
