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Foreign Minister Steinmeier ahead of the NATO Summit in Warsaw

07.07.2016 - Press release

Foreign Minister Steinmeier issued the following statement to the Funke Mediengruppe in advance of the NATO Summit in Warsaw:

One of our joint goals must be to attain greater security for everyone in Europe again, after two and a half difficult years.

NATO’s assurance measures in the east and a readiness for dialogue are therefore ultimately two sides of the same coin. One is impossible without the other. One makes no sense without the other. This is borne out by many decades of experience, including during the difficult Cold War period.

We should make sure that this message is not distorted by unnecessary acidity and exaggeration and thus misconstrued. That would undo all our efforts, because it would mean not more but less security for Europe.

We must not permit any relapse into a new, old confrontation.

I expressly welcome the fact that the NATO‑Russia Council has been successfully revived, and that we will meet already next week. It is good that Moscow is willing to discuss controversial topics such as confidence building in the Baltic Sea region and the conflict in eastern Ukraine immediately after the Warsaw Summit.

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