U.S. President Joe Biden will welcome outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to the White House for talks on Tuesday as the competition to find his successor to lead the military alliance heats up.
Stoltenberg, who has led the NATO since 2014 and has had his tenure extended three times, said earlier this year he would move on when his current term expires at the end of September. The jockeying to replace him is intensifying as leaders of the 31-member military alliance are set to meet next month for their annual summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. Stoltenberg is in the midst of a tour of NATO capitals to meet with leaders ahead of the summit.
Last week, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made the case for U.K. Defence Minister Ben Wallace directly to Biden. The Democratic president also met with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, another potential contender. A British government official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said ahead of Sunak's visit that the British leader wants to be sure the next secretary general "carries on Stoltenberg's good work of modernization but also understands the importance of defence spending at this critical time."
"The President believes that whoever is the secretary-general of NATO should be an individual who the entire alliance can get behind and lead the alliance into the future because there's a transformative future ahead for the alliance," Kirby said. "Whenever this war ends, however it ends, NATO is going to be different."
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