(KHAAMA PRESS): The National Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO) declared its stance supporting the United States following the assassination of Qassim Soleimani, a top Iranian military Major-General. Jens Stoltenberg, General Secretary for NATO announced on Monday that all members of the organization stand behind the United States after they were briefed about the US drone strike on Baghdad\u2019s airport. Speaking after a rare\u00a0NATO\u00a0meeting on Iran and Iraq in which the United States briefed its allies about last Friday\u2019s drone attack, Stoltenberg also called for a de-escalation of tensions, echoing the statements of some European leaders, Aljazeera . We are united in condemning Iran\u2019s support of a variety of different terrorist groups,\u201d Stoltenberg said. \u201cAt the meeting today, allies called for restraint and de-escalation. A new conflict would be in no one\u2019s interest. So, Iran must refrain from further violence and provocations. Despite anger last year among European NATO allies over US strategy in the Middle East under President Donald Trump, two diplomats present confirmed that the two-hour meeting at NATO headquarters went smoothly. They said that no envoy challenged the US State Department and Department of Defense officials, who briefed via video conference, over the merits of Friday\u2019s drone raid. There was also no discussion or criticism of Trump\u2019s list of targets, which include cultural sites, if Iran were to retaliate with attacks on Americans or US assets, the diplomats said. The meeting, which took place on a day of a huge outpouring of national grief for Soleimani in Iran, centered mainly on NATO\u2019s decision to suspend its training mission in Iraq, after an Iraqi parliamentary resolution called on foreign troops to leave. While there was concern that the killing of Iran\u2019s second-most powerful man could trigger a conflagration in the Middle East, France, Germany, and others said they wanted the Iraq mission to continue. \u201cIt would send the wrong signal if we withdraw,\u201d one NATO diplomat said. The NATO Iraq mission, made up of several hundred trainers, advisers and support staff from both countries of the 29-member alliance and non-NATO partner countries, includes military and civilian personnel. Established in Baghdad in October 2018 after three years of war against ISIL (ISIS) fighters, the mission is a non-combat \u201ctrain-and-advise\u201d mission to help Iraqi security structures and institutions fend off future insurgencies. Its personnel do not deploy with Iraqi forces during operations. \u201cIt\u2019s still not clear what will happen with NATO\u2019s mission in Iraq,\u201d said Al Jazeera\u2019s Natacha Butler, reporting from Brussels. \u201cNATO forces \u2026 suspended training operations for security reasons on Saturday. Iraqi lawmakers have requested foreign troops to leave the country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(KHAAMA PRESS): The National Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO) declared its stance supporting the United States following the assassination of Qassim Soleimani, a top Iranian military Major-General. Jens Stoltenberg, General Secretary for NATO announced on Monday that all members of the organization stand behind the United States after they were briefed about the US drone strike […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archived-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2579"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2581,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579\/revisions\/2581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}