British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said during a dinner with NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Wednesday, according to a statement from the UK Foreign Office released before the dinner.
In his remarks, Truss told his NATO counterparts that “the Act that established NATO-Russia is dead and it’s time to get rid of an outdated approach to dealing with Russia,” the foreign office said. .
The act, signed in 1997, stipulates that “NATO and Russia do not consider each other as rivals,” according to the original document.
“The age of engagement with Russia is over. We need a new approach to security in Europe based on resilience, defense and deterrence,” Truss said.
NATO meeting: Truss’ comments came as NATO foreign ministers met in Brussels to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
According to a statement sent to CNN, Truss stressed that NATO cannot allow a “security vacuum” on the alliance’s eastern border and should “rethink” about assisting countries “entangled in the net of influence” of Russia” such as Georgia, Moldova, Sweden and Finland.
The foreign minister also urged her partners to tighten sanctions and arm Ukraine “quickly and decisively … to ensure Putin’s defeat.”
Truss also said she was working with her G7 partners to impose more sanctions on Russian banks, according to an article published in The Telegraph on Wednesday. In the article, Truss defended NATO’s increased spending and presence in Eastern Europe.
“For NATO to remain at the forefront of global security, boldness is required. As President Eisenhower, the alliance’s first supreme commander, put it:” History has not long entrusted freedom to the weak or timid people,” the secretary of state wrote.
