United States president-elect Donald Trump on Sunday called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) "obsolete" and suggested some "good deals" ahead with Russia that would aim to reduce nuclear weapons and ease sanctions on the country.
US Secretary of Defense nominee John Mattis: We are going to have to confront Russia
"I said a long time ago that NATO had problems. Number one, it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago. I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete. It's obsolete because it wasn't taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right," Trump told The Times of London and Bild, Germany's biggest-selling daily. He, however, also added, "NATO is very important to me."
Trump also lauded Britain's exit from the European Union, Brexit, and said US will soon make a trade deal with the UK. However, he slammed German Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to take in a flood of refugees and called the move "catastrophic."
Russia, over the years, has started considering NATO's military build-up near its borders as a threat and has said that the US-built system is undermining Moscow's security and poses "direct threat to global and regional security." However, the Russian Foreign Ministry, earlier this month, expressed its desire to build normal relations with NATO and renew its severed ties.
Trump, in his remarks published in The Times, also suggested forming a deal with Russia to reduce nuclear arsenal and reducing the number of sanctions against Moscow subsequently. "They have sanctions on Russia -- let's see if we can make some good deals with Russia. I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, that's part of it," Trump said.
"But Russia's hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit," the Republican billionaire added.
Resonating his complains made during his presidential campaigns, Trump also said that some of the NATO members were not paying enough, and added that the coalition had "not bothered about terrorism."
"We're supposed to protect countries. But a lot of these countries aren't paying what they're supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States. There's five countries that are paying what they're supposed to. Five. It's not much," the US president-elect added.
