were meeting those challenges with confidence and above all was unity. make no mistake. we will not be drawn into poker's war of choice, but we will strengthen made those defense and the church. we will defend every inch of nato territory and we will continue to defend the open world of rules and rights that made o hassle probably supported for nearly 75 years. so thank you very much and i'll be glad to take a couple of questions. thank you, mr. sector. first question will go to christopher gordon and space forces magazine . thank you, mister secretary. in what ways would nato's security be strengthened if sweden were to become a member of the alliance in the upcoming months? how specifically would such a development enhance the alliance's military deterrence capabilities in the northern region? and generally, why is it important? and a sweden is not admitted into the alliance soon. what specific steps will the us take

to safeguard, sweetie, security? in the meantime, would there be more military deployments, exercises, training, planning? what will the us do to prepare the way for sweden's, eventual integration into nato and protects in the meantime. and if i may ask a related question, sir, did you make any headway in your meeting with turkey today on winning support for sweden's expression in tomato? and can the provision of f sixteens to turkey? go ahead. if turkey does not agree to sweden's a session in tomato a chris i uh, i last year and about the test questionnaire but but uh we'll, we'll try to catch up here. uh, 1st of all, i see the terms of the value that's leading brands to tomato.

as you know chris sweeten is a strong democracy and it is in it's a country with a substantial military capability. they've invested over the years and modernization. we have train with them in a number of cases and, and so being hit or operable on in a very short period of time would be no challenge with uh, what sweep now is just as sweet and a couple, couple of weeks ago as you may know, and i had the opportunity to spend some time with the, with the minister of defense, and also get a chance to look at some of their capabilities. very impressed with the leadership in the interim military and, and, and the enthusiasm and commitment of their troops. so what they bring is, again, substantial military capability, a modern force, and they invested

a lot in their force. i was also impressed by their domain awareness, maritime domain awareness, and in the awareness of what's going on in the, in the skies around them as well. and in the region, so they bring that with the, the tomato as well to hand enhance our ability to, to be aware of what's going on in the maritime and an aerial domains. as you ask about the increasing activity with which we, we've done that already. we've increase a number of, uh, exercises and, and ship visits and the number of other things. so sweet and then so uh, you know, i, i think, uh, i think we've made, we continue to make progress in increased our opportunities to, to work towards greater interoperability. so very uh, i think very encouraging. now you mentioned my interaction with, uh, my turkish uh,

colleague. uh, you know, this is a brand new minister recently install. so our purpose of meeting him today was to just in an introductory meeting, just to congratulate him on being installed as minister of defense, of course sees every opportunity to encourage them to uh, to move forward and approve of the exception of. absolutely. so, but it's very short meeting and i don't have anything to report out from the, from any can. thank you, sir. next question, go to political. you really thank you very much. i have to brief questions. the 1st is, what is your message to allies who still haven't made concrete plans on how to reach the 2 percent defense investment target in particular, canada and luxembourg. and my 2nd question would be the all reports that the us is

now in favor of waving the membership action plan for ukraine. do you think that such a move would be sufficient to meet the expectations of all allies, including those allies who want a clear path toward membership for you cream, active on the assignment? thank you. yeah, in terms of the action plan, i'll let the the the secretary general speak uh, specifically about that but, but i, so i think we're at a point in time where, you know, you've heard me say that we're confronting historic challenges. and so what we've learned over the last many months is we've watched this unprovoked and illegal invasion of a russia into ukraine. what we've learned is that, you know, countries have to invest in their,

in their defense. and i think actually we, i think we know that already and in and most, everybody knows that already. but it became real as we saw this on whole. and so countries are leading forward in an, in more than willing to invest and in their defense. and as we continue to discuss this, i think there is broad agreement, but the 2 percent investment, 2 percent of gdp investments should be a floor amount of ceiling. and. and then there are many countries that are anxious to exceed the 2 percent. and there are many countries that are on, on the glide path to, uh, to get there in a reasonable amount of time. in terms of the specific countries that are, that have not yet made it there. i would defer to, to them to talk about their, you know, their, their plan to get there. but, you know, i see broad, the broad agreement that this is a goal, highly worth pursuing. so we'll continue to encourage our allies to, to,

to meet that goal. because it's really, really important, we have to continue to invest and weapons and munitions that and replace the weapons and munitions that we provided to ukraine in many cases. and, and it's going to take increasing investment to make sure that we are where we need to be across the board with made up. we also have to standardize a munitions. we've learned a lot there as well. and, and so our, our minutes directors are working together to make sure that, you know, we're possible we're engaging in the, in a so joint procurement activities and, and, and so a number of things. they're really good things that transpired as a result of our efforts here, but a lot of that's taking place in the, under the auspices of auspices of the c g. so let's go to at least cbs news.

so thank you for doing this. as you know, secretary blinking is traveling to beijing this weekend, and one of his stated goals is to improve military communications. how would you describe the current mil to mil communications with china and have you reached out for a meeting with your counterpart since singapore? well, i think so a, uh, as you know, i have uh, made an effort prior to go into singapore and wallet singapore, to uh, uh, to engage my counterpart and i'm confident that overtime that's going to happen. we're gonna, we're gonna meet at some point time, but we're not there yet. not because we're not, we didn't try to and we, that we won't continue to try. and as you know, i was, i'm single for a week and a half ago. i've been on the road quite a bit and, and so i've not, i've not reached out since, but again, the door is open and my phone is up. my phone line is open and so they can pick

up the phone and call at any time and we'll continue to work to make sure that we, uh, we have open lines of communication. how are you? you've heard me say a number of times, i think it's important that countries with a significant military capacity and capabilities have a means to talk to each other so that we can uh, we can manage uh, potential crises and, and uh, you know, make sure that you know, cool things are on allow to, uh, necessarily spiral out of control. um, you know, we kind of relationship that we want to have with china is, is a, is one of competition. and now we're not one of contention. so we'll continue to work to make sure that we're, we're when possible, you know, we, uh, we open those lines of communication. we have time for one more question. let's go to lina from system to the vision. um 6 to awesome. thank you very much. um,

1st of all, the recently towards the, the information that appeared in the new york times and several and all the immersing media that to us may offer you creating some so called is realistic here to move. so can you explain in more detail what exactly does that mean on? so do think it's a, is a bible idea and it will be available for you create a some kind of a security guarantee is overall, i guess you know that it's not for the same security account as a survey. you create as how you would like to receive thanks. so i know i know i won't speak to any type of security arrangement at this point time. what i've been focused on what i remain focused on is making sure that we're providing ukraine. the security assistance that it needs to be successful in this fight or right now. and it's, it's really important that we and in our partners that are fighting the 5 remain focused on this. and in, you know, we'll have

a bilateral relationship with uh, with ukraine going forward, as you would imagine. that's uh, you know, but the people who, or hammer out those kinds of arrangements or are talking to each other. but again, my focus remains on making sure we get the right kinds of security assistance to ukraine, so they can be successful. and i think this is a really critical time on in a point in time on a battlefield. so. but what, thanks for the question. thank you mr. secretary. ladies and gentlemen, that's all the time we have for today. thank you for coming. and that was the news conference by the us, secretary of defense, lloyd austin, that in brussels, ride off to the same use conference held a by nato secretary general sienna stultz and back off for me. take off nato defense ministers that at night the quarters in brussels. so there's lots to on

pick. with all the w, russell's bureau chief, some of phenomena who's at night headquarters listened to everything, of course. and alexandra, i would, i'd like to go 1st to an issue that both starts and back and uh, the us secretary of defense i have addressed and that is sweetens membership bids. where does it stand now as well? it is still blocked by turkey and by hungary, both of them showed confidence that this issue can be result. and those were also sort of ask what they can do to convince the added to need to members blocking sweden's application to drop their objections. and the big problem here is of course, turkey, the pressure there is mounting onto her key to rectify sweden's membership of nato, but it has not happened now. and of course there is

a lot of speculation. spots can be done, especially on this side of the u. s, how do you as could put more pressure on to a key, we know that we're hearing from our sources. steps to a key would like to see a deal to buy f. 16 fighter jets from the us finalize. but they also want to see some of this us as still existing alms embargoes dropped. so all of that is on the table and the pressure on turkey is mounting to finally dropped their objections. but what the time, so to speak, running out of it, is difficult to believe that that really can happen on to the summit of a need to leaders in building use. however, both the signal that there are still hoping that this issue can be resolved because

of course, not admitting sweden to the alliance means that the alliance is weaker. mr . austin, once again stress how important it would be to have sweden as a new member's. this democratic nation with a strong modern army with a lot of capabilities that a need to could profit from now a, another issue that both austin on stuff and back address that in the news conferences with the bid to present the fame is 2 percent and that means of course that's at 2 percent of g d p that every member country must now spend apparently at least 2 percent on defense. do you think there was unity that well, i don't think that there is you need to know because there are some nato countries

who have not hit the target yet. and forcing for instance, canada. they are spending current me about 1.3 percent, also to the p on defense. there are things that it's difficult for them to spend more. but a bose installed back and lloyd austin said today that there are confidence that there will be an agreement by o l. i is because of course, facing this very difficult and change geo political situation. russia's war and ukraine, more and more allies understand that they need to spend more, that there is the needs to have those 2 percent as a floor, not a ceiling. germany, for instance, a, a will hit the targets next year and in 2025. however, only due to the special funding that they will invest on a.