Good morning.

At the Defence Ministerial meeting that starts tomorrow, Defence Ministers will take forward the decisions Heads of State and Governments made when the met at the July Summit here in Brussels. And we will address many different issues, but one of the issues we will address is how to take forward the issue of burden sharing and the commitments we made at the Summit to invest more and also to deliver on the other aspects of burden sharing, contributions and capabilities.

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Question [Bloomberg News]: Thank you very much.  Bloomberg News. You mentioned earlier the Iran deal, how important is it for the European security and how will the paradigm of European defence change after sanctions against Iran are restarted?  And a second question, if I may, about defence spending.  Poland proposed to build a military presence for years on his soil.  What kind of precedent does it set perhaps for other member states?  Thank you very much.

Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: All Allies are concerned about Iran destabilising activities in the wider Middle East region, and we strongly condemn the financial support for terrorism, including Iran's support to a variety of armed non-state actors.  We are also, of course, concerned about their missile programme and we are committed to ensuring that Iran's nuclear programme remains peaceful.  Then there are different views on the JCPOA, or the Iran nuclear deal, and that’s… what should I say… a fact, but despite the disagreement on the Iran nuclear deal, we all agree on the importance that any nuclear programme in Iran remains peaceful.  And we are also concerned about what they do when it comes to destabilising other countries in the region.

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