United States President Donald Trump has agreed to meet the the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) leaders in May, the White House said. Trump, in a phone call with the NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, also talked about the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Donald Trump calls NATO 'obsolete' as he suggests 'good' nuclear deals with Moscow
Trump has always been critical of the organisation, and during his presidential campaign he had pledged to push NATO members to increase their funding to the western alliance to ease the financial burden on the United States. However, both sides of the political parties in the US are apprehensive about the idea, and many European allies fear that the Russian President Vladimir Putin may take advantage.
A White House statement on Sunday said that Trump and Stoltenberg "discussed how to encourage all NATO allies to meet their defence spending commitments...President Trump agreed to join in a meeting of NATO leaders in Europe in May."
The leaders also "discussed the potential for a peaceful resolution of the conflict along the Ukrainian border," the statement said.
The hostilities between the Ukrainian military and the Russia-backer separatists have flared up over the past week, where each party is accusing the other of launching fresh shelling. Reports state that more than 40 people have been killed in total due to the fresh violence, including civilians.
The US President has always shown a considerably soft stance towards Putin which has drawn fire from many in the United States. When asked about Putin during an interview broadcast on Sunday during Fox Channel's Super Bowl pre-game show with interviewer Bill O'Reilly, Trump waved off concerns of Putin being a killer and appeared to defend him by stating 'we have a lot of killers in our country too', according to Reuters reports.
"We've got a lot of killers...You think our country's so innocent? You think our country's so innocent?" Trump said, citing the 2003 war in Iraq.
Trump has also been considering lifting sanctions off Russia and making fresh nuclear pacts with the Russian leader. However, many lawmakers are averse to the idea.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida tweeted stating that lifting US sanctions off Russia would be a mistake. Rubio had also run for the presidential elections 2016.
"Only reason we should ever lift sanctions on #Putin is if he meets conditions of sanctions & ends violations of #ukraine sovereignty," he said.
