Biden calls NATO's common military pact 'a sacred obligation'

US President Joe Biden has called NATO’s article 5 "a sacred obligation," in an attempt to unite the military alliance.

Article 5 states that an attack on one member state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an attack on all the members.

Referencing the 9/11 terror attacks on the US,  the president made the comments in a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels on Monday.

"I constantly remind Americans that when America was attacked for the first time on its shores since what happened back at the end of World War II, NATO stepped up,” Biden said. "I just want all of Europe to know that the United States is there. The United States is there."

His comments showed a stark contrast to former President Donald Trump’s position, calling the alliance “obsolete.”

"I just want all of Europe to know that the United States is there. The United States is there,” Biden said in his first foreign trip as the president.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan had suggested earlier that NATO’s Article 5 could be updated to encompass the rather novel phenomenon of cyber attacks.

"This would be on a case-by-case basis," he said. “And the notion is that if someone gets hit by a massive cyberattack, and they need technical or intelligence support from another ally to be able to deal with it, they could invoke Article 5 to be able to get that."

With Biden in power, tensions have been on the rise with Russia, whose President Vladimir Putin used to maintain closer ties with the former US president.

After meeting with Stoltenberg, Biden also met with leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, expressing support for them in the wake of the rising Russian sphere of influence.

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"It was a constructive, warm, vigorous engagement between him and the three leaders and a real show of solidarity and unity with NATO’s eastern flank," a senior administration official said.

The White House also claimed in a written statement following their meeting that, “the four leaders committed to further strengthening our political, military, and economic partnerships, including working together through NATO to address challenges posed by Russia and China.”

Moscow has for long condemned stepped-up US and NATO presence near Russian borders.

A Biden-Putin meeting will take place following the NATO summit in Belgium in the third part of the US president’s first foreign trip.

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