 the Secretary General will preview this week's meeting with the foreign ministers and then he'll take your questions. Secretary General. Good afternoon. Over the next days, NATO foreign ministers will discuss urgent security issues. We face the most dangerous world in decades, growing global competition, war in Ukraine, and renewed conflict in the Middle East. I welcome that the agreement between Hamas and Israel has led to the release of hostages and the delivery of more humanitarian aid. I call for an extension of the polls. This would allow for much needed relief to the people of Gaza and the release of more hostages. The suffering we have seen underlines the need for a lasting political solution. NATO allies are present in the wider Middle East region, including through our capacity-building mission in Iraq. We have seen drone and rocket strikes on U.S. positions in Syria and Iraq, as well as attacks on commercial shipping. This underlines the risk of escalation. Iran must reign in its proxies. Tomorrow, ministers will address Russia's destabilizing actions in Ukraine and beyond. Russia has brought war back to Europe, and it seeks to destabilize our democracies with cyber attacks, disinformation, energy blackmail, and even migration. In recent weeks, Moscow has been facilitating the arrival of migrants at Finland's border with Russia, prompting the closure of border-crossing points, using migration as a tool to put pressure on a neighbour and a NATO ally. NATO stands in solidarity with our ally Finland, and I welcome that Frontex is helping to bolster Finland's borders. At our ministerial, allies have also addressed the challenges China presents to our security. I welcome recent discussions between China and allies. Dialogue is important, and we must seek or pretend this to work together on a range of issues, including climate and arms control. China is not an adversary, but Beijing's actions challenge our security, and we must work together to respond. We will also address the situation in the western Balkans. We have seen serious violence in northern Kosovo, divisive and secessionist rhetoric in Bostadsevovina, and malign attempts to sow dissent, including from Russia. Together with the EU representative, we will discuss ways to enhance stability in the region. NATO has already added 1,000 extra troops to Kosovo, and we are examining a more enduring increase of our presence in Kosovo. Belgrade and Prishta must re-engage in the EU-facilitated dialogue. It depends on all sides choosing dialogue and diplomacy over conflict and chaos. On Wednesday, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Koleva will join us for the first meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council at Foreign Minister's level. We will reaffirm NATO's long-term support. Last year, Ukraine won the battles of Kiev, Kharkiv and Khadson. This year, they continue to inflict heavy losses on Russia. Ukraine has recaptured 50 percent of the territory that Russia has seized. It has prevailed as a sovereign independent nation. This is a big win for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russia is weaker politically, economically and militarily. Ukraine continues to fight gravely. We continue to support it. This month, Germany and the Netherlands pledged 10 billion euros for Ukraine. Romania opened an F-16 training center for Ukrainian pilots. Allies including the U.S. and Finland are sending more air defenses and a mission to protect Ukrainian cities from Russian attacks. And 20 Allies are now formed an air defense coalition for Ukraine. Allies agree that Ukraine will become a member of NATO. At our meeting, we will agree recommendations for Ukraine's priority reforms. As we continue to support Kiev on this path to NATO membership. Finally, on Sweden. Sweden's membership will make NATO stronger and all of us safer. So I welcome that the Turkish parliament has begun its ratification process. I count on Turkey and Hungary to complete the ratifications as soon as possible. The time has come. With that, I'm ready to take your questions. We'll start with Swedish radio in the second world place. Mr. Secretary General, how does the statement from the leader of the Swedish Democrats that he wants to stop the construction of new mosques, even confiscate and demolish mosque buildings, affect the possibilities of finalization soon on the Swedish NATO membership in Turkey, and what do you think about the statement in general? In the second question, the increased migration, as you mentioned, the pressure we've seen in Finland, in Russia. How will it be raised at the meeting, and in what way? Is it comparable with the situation with Belarus two years ago going to you? Thank you. So first on the last on the Finnish border. Well, I think it's too early to say how many, to what degree this is the same as we saw on the border with Belarus. But I think what we can say is that this is yet another example of how Russia is using migration as a tool to try to put pressure on other countries in Europe. And therefore, I'm in close contact with the Finnish government. They have briefed us on the situation. And we are, of course, following very closely what's happened around the Finnish border. Having said that, I'm actually confident that the Finnish authorities are able to deal with this situation themselves, also with the support they get from the EU border agency Frontex, and so far there has been no request for any NATO increased involvement on this situation. Border control is something which is done by border authorities and by national authorities in NATO countries like in Finland. Then on the statement from the Swedish leader of the Swedish political party, I will just say that I will not go into domestic discussions, but I believe in freedom of religion with freedom of expression. And these are also called NATO values, democracy, freedom of democracy. And these are actually fundamental rights which shall be protected throughout the alliance. What matters for NATO's, for Sweden's NATO membership is the fact that Sweden, as a government, as a nation, has delivered on what they pledged. Sweden promised in Madrid and also later on in Vilnius to step up its fight against terrorism, step up its cooperation with Turkey, and also to remove restrictions on arms control, and that's exactly what Sweden has done. So Sweden has delivered on what they promised, and now the time has come to be to find us the accession process. And it's good that President Erdogan has submitted the papers for application to the parliament. It's good that the parliament in Ankara, the Grand National Assembly has started to deal with these documents, and I hope they can find us this process as soon as possible. We'll go to a greener summer. Roll the floor in the middle here, please. Thank you, Dylan. Secretary General, Irina Somer, new agency, Interfax Ukraine. What is your assessment for the implementation of Vilnius summit decision regarding Ukraine? What is your expectation towards upcoming summit in Washington? And what Ukraine have to do to get a good result there. Thank you. So NATO hours are following up and implementing the decisions we made on Ukraine and NATO membership at our Summit in the Middle East in the United States. And we made three important decisions. First of all, we shortened Ukraine's path to membership from a two-step process to a one-step process by removing the requirement for a membership action plan for Ukraine. So that step has already been taken. We actually removed one of the faces that Ukraine has to pass to become a full member by removing the requirement for a membership action plan, as we also actually did for Finland and Sweden. Second, we have established a NATO Ukraine Council, which is an important body where Ukraine and all NATO allies meet around the same table with the same rights, the same obligations. And that's a body where we can make decisions together. So that moves Ukraine, of course, significantly closer to NATO by establishing a decision making body of the NATO Ukraine Council. And that body, that council, will meet for the first time at the foreign ministerial level this week when Minister Koleva comes to NATO. And thirdly, we have agreed a comprehensive, substantial program for ensuring full interoperability between Ukrainian forces and NATO forces. This will, of course, help them also to come closer to us, that they are more capable of operating together with NATO forces, and allies are delivering on that. On top of that, of course, the fact that NATO allies are delivering F-16s, battle tanks, artillery training, all of that is in a very practical way helping Ukraine to come closer to NATO because they are more and more also capable of operating and working together with NATO soldiers and the best of NATO doctrines and training procedures. It's too early to say exactly what will be the decision at the Washington Summit. All allies agree that in the midst of the war, full membership is not possible, but, of course, we will continue to look into, to address how we can move Ukraine and NATO even closer together as we prepare for the Washington Summit. What decision will make there has to be addressed at the latest stage when we are closer to the summit. We'll go to Petra Jordan in the second row here, please. This is Mohamed Chaboul from Jordan News Agency. Mr. Secretary General, what specific issues will the ministers discuss with us with the situation in the Middle East? Thank you. Of course, we are extremely concerned and also welcome the fact that King Abdullah visited NATO a couple of weeks ago and gave a briefing to all allies on the bilateral meeting with him. His assessments, his analysis are of great value for NATO, and it demonstrates also that Jordan is a close partner, highly valued partner of NATO. We have partners in the region. Israel is a partner, but also Jordan, Iraq, many Gulf countries, other Arabic countries are NATO partners. And in this critical situation we consult, we work with, we listen to our partners in the region. So we welcome the pause in the fighting. This has enabled the release of hostages and enabled the delivery of support, humanitarian support to the people of Gaza. All on an extension of the pause because so this will give the people of Gaza a much needed relief. It will also enable further release of hostages. NATO has an alliance and never played an active role in the Israel-Palestine conflict. We have a presence in the wider region with our training mission in Iraq to fight ISIS with our close cooperation with Jordan and we also do some defense capacity building efforts. And of course we are concerned about the potential escalation of the conflict, and therefore our message to Iran is that they should reign in their proxies. And of course what we have seen, Jordan attacks on ships, on U.S. forces in the region, but also attacks on commercial ships is of great concern and underlying importance that Iran actually really don't use this situation to turn this war into a full-scale regional conflict. Go to Terry Schultz in room 3 here, please. Thank you, Terry Schultz with the DW today. Mr. Secretary General, how concerned are you by the emergence of plans that could call for Ukraine to give up territories permanently, possibly in exchange for NATO membership? How much does this concern you about the long-term security of NATO if this were actually to be the case? And are you also worried that perhaps flagging in the sense of declining weapons deliveries to Ukraine could mean that Ukraine would be forced into that situation? Again, leaving territories in Russian hands that are Ukrainian land. Thank you. It is for Ukraine to decide what are acceptable ways to end this war. Our responsibility is to support Ukraine and to enable them to liberate as much land as possible and to put them in the best possible place when or if negotiations may start. Wars are by nature unpredictable. We have seen no sign that President Putin is planning for peace. He is actually planning for more war. So what we do know is that the more military support we provide to Ukraine, the stronger the position will be on the battlefield and the stronger the position will be on a potential negotiating table. I think we have to also recognize that Ukraine has already made big or achieved big victories. We have to remember where this conflict started. At the beginning of the war, we feared that Ukraine would collapse within weeks and that President Putin would control Kiev within days. That didn't happen. The opposite happened. The Ukrainians were able to push Russian forces out of the north in the east and in the south. They have liberated 50 percent of the territory that Russia occupied at the beginning of the war, the full-fledged invasion, and they have prevailed as a sovereign independent democratic nation in Europe. This is a big victory for Ukraine. At the same time, Russia has suffered big losses. Significant fighting capabilities, tens of thousands of troops and personnel, and Russia is becoming more and more isolated politically, weaker economically and militarily. So in total, what we have seen is big defeats for Russia that have not achieved the strategic goal to control Ukraine and the Ukrainians have achieved a lot. Again, it is for Ukraine to decide. Our responsibility is to put them in the strongest possible position and therefore welcome the continued support from the NATO allies. Go to Reuters here. Andrew Gray from Reuters, Secretary General. You said that Ukraine has achieved big victories in this war, but it hasn't achieved any big victories this year in the counter-offensive. General Zaluzhny himself talks about a stalemate. So what does NATO content with that state of the war? And if not, what is NATO and what are NATO allies willing to do to break the stalemate? So what we see is intense fighting. There is extremely difficult situation along the front line, especially in the East. We see high casualty numbers and some of the most intense fighting that we have seen throughout the war has actually taken place over the last weeks and couple of months. This happens at the same time as the front line has not shifted in a significant way. So I think we need to distinguish between the fact that the front line is not moving so much and the fact that actually there is very heavy fighting going on. And again, we are impressed by the bravery, the competence of the Ukrainian forces and also their ability to actually strike behind the Russian lines deep into Russian-controlled territory. And of course military achievements can partly be measured in square meters, but also on the losses you are able to inflict on your adversary. And yes, the front line has not moved so much and of course we would like them to liberate as much territory as possible, as quickly as possible, but even though the front line has not moved, the Ukrainians have been able to inflict heavy losses on the Russian invaders, both measured in personnel and casualties, but also in taking out fighting capabilities. So these are significant gains and also been able to push back the black sea fleet from the Russian fleet from the big parts of the black sea. So these remains important military gains, even though the last months you haven't seen any significant territorial gains. But again, we have to remember the starting point. The starting point was that most experts, and also we have created that the Ukrainians who were going to collapse in weeks, they've actually made huge gains. We'll go to Tanyuk over here on the left side. Thanks. Mr. Secretary General, how do you see the future of the mission of KVOR? And do you think that NATO could take on a bigger role than the existing one in order to improve the security situation, especially in the north of Kosovo and Metohia? I've just visited Kosovo, also I've visited Serga and all the countries in the region, Bosnia-Segovina, north of Macedonia, and met with the leaders from the whole region. And my message is that of course NATO will do what's necessary to maintain stability in this region. It is important for NATO. We have a history there. We have a presence there. And we have just recently increased our presence in Kosovo by adding 1,000 extra troops. We are now assessing whether this should be a more enduring increase, whether there is a need for any particular new capabilities. But we have already taken the important steps by increasing our presence. We also urge both Krishna and Berga to engage in good faith in the EU-facilitated dialogue. And we also believe that the proposal for association of Serb majority municipalities could be an important step forward in moving this dialogue in a more constructive direction. My message again, both in Krishna and in Berga, was that both artists must refrain from inflammatory rhetoric and must, of course, not conduct an action that can further increase tensions in the region. We'll go to Telegraph in the forefront of the middle here, please. Good question. The flare of new conflicts increases the likelihood of a global conflict between NATO and Russia. How do you assess the alliance's preparation for the possible Third World War? And is it being discussed in the context of the continuation of the conflict in Ukraine? Fundamentally, NATO has two main tasks when it comes to the war aggression against Ukraine. One is to support Ukraine as we have done since the beginning of the war, and actually many others have provided significant support to Ukraine also before the full-fledged invasion. And we continue to provide support to Ukraine. Another main task is to prevent escalation, to turn this conflict into a full-fledged war between Russia and NATO, because that will cause even more suffering and death and destruction. And we are preventing escalation of this war by sending a very clear message to Moscow that we are ready to defend every inch of NATO territory. And we have demonstrated that not only works but also deeds by increasing our military presence in the eastern part of the alliance. We have doubled the number of BAT groups. We have high readiness of forces, and we have also deployed more air and naval forces in the eastern part of the alliance. We do this not to provoke a conflict but to prevent the conflict and to make sure that there is no room for miscalculation or misunderstanding in Moscow and is to defend the alliance. This is fundamentally the same as NATO has done for almost 75 years, preserving peace, preventing war, by having credible deterrence and defense. And that's what we continue to do to make sure that Russia does not go further and actually seek a solution to the conflict in Ukraine where Ukraine prevails as a certain unit and state. Thank you very much. We will go to ZDF in the middle of the room. Thank you very much. Mr. Sordberg, once again on Turkey, you yourself have raised the hopes that Turkey could celebrate a swing, could celebrate its accession to NATO on this foreign ministerial, but now again Turkey hasn't has disappointed and hasn't delivered. Are you disappointed? I mean, President Adon himself has promised to you a rapid accession process. Are you disappointed? And what can you do to accelerate this process? So I would have liked to see a more speedy ratification process. That's no secret. And that has been my message now for several months. I actually made it clear seven months ago that the time has come to ratify not only Finland but also Sweden. And therefore I have continued to engage with the Turkish leadership including a phone call with President Adon a few weeks ago underlining the importance of finalizing the ratification of Sweden's membership. After my phone call with President Adon, he decided to submit the protocols for ratification to the Turkish parliament. That was an important step and it was also good news when the speaker of the parliament decided to submit the paper to the Foreign Relations Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee had their first take on the protocols of paper ratification. I think it's a couple of weeks ago. Then, of course, I would like them to finalize that. And that's exactly what I have communicated many times because Sweden has delivered, NATO has delivered on what we promised and now it's time for Turkey and Hungary to finalize the process. Because we have to remember that Turkey has legitimate security concerns. No, there are several more terrorist attacks. They are concerned about terrorist groups which are attacking them. And, of course, we should work with Turkey to help them protect themselves against the terrorist groups. And that's exactly what NATO is now doing. I have stepped up. We have stepped up here at NATO. I have appointed a special coordinator for our efforts in the fight against terrorism. We are in the process of updating our guidelines for the fight against terrorism. These are important things for Turkey but also, of course, for all the lines. And then Sweden has really stepped up when it comes to exchange of intelligence. The security services are working more closely with the Turkish security services. Also, knowing that PKK is not only regarded as a terrorist organization by Turkey but also by Sweden and NATO allies and also that PKK is linked to also organized crime in Sweden. So I welcome the increased cooperation on fighting terrorism but also that Sweden has removed restrictions on arms exports and also, of course, follow-up on the message from Vilnius that we should remove as many obstacles as possible for arms exports between NATO allies. All of this has been followed up from NATO and therefore my message remains that Turkey should finalize and I'm expecting that this will be a very clear message that will be contained to Foreign Minister Hakan Fedam when he arrives at the NATO foreign minister meeting where Palace will express their need to see a speedy finalization of their application. Final question today goes to Frankfurter Agamani Zaitun in the middle. Thanks a lot to Moskutka, Agamani Zaitun. Secretary General, do you sense a willingness among NATO member states to equip Ukraine with what it needs after offensive next spring and how do you assess General Solutionary's recent statement that to break out of the stalemate Ukraine would need new types of weapons that the weapons of the past that have been delivered so far are simply not enough to actually change the situation on the battlefield. Thank you. So what I see when I travel and meet NATO Allies is a wavering commitment to support Ukraine with an unprecedented level of military support and just a recent announcement by Germany, 8 billion extra and then added with 2 billion extra from the Netherlands. So just over the last couple of weeks we have had 10 billion extra and 12 euros for military support to Ukraine announced by two important NATO Allies then you have the Air Defense Coalition which is not only looking into how can we sustain and provide ammunition and the spare parts to existing air defense systems but how can we also add more and more advanced air defense systems to Ukraine which will enable them partly to protect their civilians, their cities but also to protect their economy the critical infrastructure and also protect their own defense industry is enormously important to do what these 28 NATO Allies are doing to establish this air defense coalition to organize, facilitate more air defense support. Allies have delivered very advanced weapons including cruise missiles from from the Netherlands, from France and Allies also providing a lot of other modern types of weapons and then of course we have also the establishment of the training facility in Romania for training F-16 pilot so overall I see a very strong commitment from NATO Allies to really provide military support and wide range of types of weapons then of course what you have seen is that even with these substantial significant military support from NATO Allies they have not over the last year been able to move the front line and that just reflects the fact that we should never underestimate Russia their defense industry is on the war footing they are able to resupply their forces with ammunition and new capabilities they have got a significant amount of ammunition from North Korea and there is a willingness to sacrifice people in this operation which also makes it hard for Ukrainians to achieve the territory gains we all hope for but rest assured I am actually the certain of the message from NATO Allies at this meeting but also when we gather later one at the Washington Summit is that we need to stand by Ukraine it is our security interest that President Putin does not win this war then just one thing about technology I think that first of all we are providing Ukraine with more and more advanced systems second technology is not only about one specific item or weapon it's about how they can operate together how we can use drones, how we can use cyber how we can use different systems and connecting them and then providing new capabilities and Allah is also working on that and the way I read the article was also very much about actually how to connect and integrate different weapon systems so they can establish or provide even more advanced capabilities that's all we have time for today there will be several other opportunities this week thank you