Biden, Stoltenberg discuss NATO strategy at Bucharest Nine meeting in Warsaw

By Jo Harper

WARSAW (AA) - US President Joe Biden and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg are attending the Bucharest Nine Summit in Warsaw on Wednesday and are expected to issue a joint declaration on NATO's strategy along its eastern flank countries.

The Bucharest Nine is a format bringing together the countries of NATO's eastern flank: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary.

According to Marcin Przydacz, head of the Presidential Office of International Policy, the B9 summit in Warsaw is a preparatory discussion before the NATO summit in Vilnius in July.

“The cooperation of NATO's eastern flank results from the basic assumption that we are all here in this unstable region, east of our borders, and we must cooperate with each other,” said Przydacz.

At a meeting on Tuesday with Biden, Polish President Andrzej Duda said Wednesday’s summit had an “important, symbolic visit here in the region. We do not perceive it only as Poles, as a visit to us. This is a visit to our region combined with a visit to Kyiv. This is a very strong signal of responsibility that the United States constantly bears for the security of Europe and the world,” he said.