A summit of NATO leaders has opened in Wales. The main topics of discussion were expected to be the Ukraine crisis, the advance of "Islamic State" militants in Syria and Iraq, as well as NATO's mission in Afghanistan, reports GHN based on dw.de
The meeting, being held at a golf resort just outside of the Welsh city of Newport, kicked off with a ceremony in which NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and the national leaders paid tribute to soldiers killed while serving in NATO missions abroad.
Soldiers from the member and allied states carried their respective flags into the large conference room where the leaders are meeting, before they held a minute of silence to remember the fallen soldiers.
The summit had originally been meant to focus mainly on Afghanistan, where NATO troops are to wind down their combat mission by the end of the year. However, due to the developments of the past few months, the crisis in eastern Ukraine and the advance of "Islamic State" militants in Syria and Iraq are expected to dominate much of the agenda.
Prior to the start of the talks, Rasmussen, who described this as "one of the most important summits in the history of our alliance," accused Russia of ongoing involvement eastern Ukraine despite presenting a peace plan.
"We are faced with a dramatically changed security environment. To the east, Russia is attacking Ukraine," Rasmussen said. He also said that as long as the Kremlin continued on its current path, aseven-point peace plan presented by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday was virtually meaningless.