Amid new threats, NATO must be more active: Erdogan

ISTANBUL

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday that NATO needs to be more active and up-to-date amid the rapidly changing nature of security threats.

“The refugee crisis and migratory movements are affecting the whole world. Cyber-attacks, epidemics, and regional instability are being reflected even in geographically isolated countries,” Erdogan told reporters at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport before leaving for a NATO summit in Poland.

“The nature of security threat concepts is undergoing drastic changes. During this process, NATO needs to be more active and update itself in the face of these new threats.”

He added, “We expect NATO to show much more effort in the face of developments that negatively impact Turkey’s security.”

The president said at the two-day Warsaw summit, leaders will discuss strengthening NATO’s defense and deterrence structure, among other subjects.

He said that the summit comes at a very critical time, days after the Daesh terrorist organization killed hundreds in Istanbul, Baghdad, and Medina.

“As we can see, international security is becoming more fragile,” he said.

Erdogan said that this is not a local problem affecting only some Middle East and North African countries. “On the contrary, all regions and all countries are being influenced,” he said, calling it “an issue of global dimensions.”

He said that the recent attacks carried out in France, Belgium, Tunisia, and the U.S. show that no matter how developed a country is, it cannot avoid the issue.

Speaking in Warsaw on Thursday, at a joint news conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, “The world is a more dangerous place than just a few years ago.”

“And NATO is responding with speed and with determination,” he said, adding that the size of NATO’s Response Force has been tripled.

“Tomorrow and on Saturday we will take new major steps to further modernize our collective defense and deterrence and to project stability beyond our borders,” Stoltenberg said.