Anthony Albanese ‘set to attend NATO’s 75th anniversary in US’: official

Anthony Albanese is expected to attend the summit celebrations in Washington, along with other NATO ‘partners’ NZ, South Korea and Japan.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg meets Anthony Albanese during a NATO leaders summit in Vilnius, 2023. Picture: AFP.

A senior NATO official has said it was expected that Anthony Albanese would attend the 75th anniversary of the alliance in Washington on July 9 to 11 as officials warn about a new regional threat.

Australia is a “partner” in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, a collective of 32 member nations in Europe and North America which was founded in 1949 after World War II as a security deterrent and Australia’s top level political presence at the Washington summit will deepen the country’s increasing status among the alliance membership, the official said.

The invitation was revealed during a two day NATO-funded study tour attended by The Australian. The senior official said that the four partners of the alliance – Australia, South Korea, New Zealand and Japan – would be officially invited to the summit celebrations. This will occur during the US presidential primaries.

The invitation to the partners, created when NATO turned its attention to the “global south” amid increasing concerns about China’s posturing regarding Taiwan, will be sent by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

“The assumption is they will attend, they will accept our invitation,’’ the official said.

“So that will be the third straight summit in a row where these four leaders turn up. And I think that is a sign of our interest in this dialogue (in the Indo-Pacific), co-operation and your interest as well’’.

The Prime Minister has attended the past two summits of NATO, including last year’s event in Vilnius, Lithuania, where it was approved that discussions about future Ukraine membership would begin. Over the past year, Australia’s four year agreement with NATO has been formalised with 13 different aspects including involvement in NATO exercises and using NATO’s interoperability standards while contributing to NATO’s areas such as cyber, new technology, resilience and Women in Peace and Security.

The official said NATO’s interest in the Indo Pacific would not extend to providing any military support because the North Atlantic Treaty’s area of responsibility is the Euro Atlantic with NATO membership only possible for countries in that area.

“We are not going to the Indo Pacific to take on a defence role. But we are very much in the business of, of looking for opportunities to discuss and co-operate with, with partners in the Indo Pacific,” he said.

The official said the NATO interest in the Indo Pacific had intensified since 2019 because of China’s behaviour.

But he warned there was a new element emerging, that of the increasingly close relationship between North Korea and Russia, with North Korea providing very significant support to Russia in Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

The official said: “Ammunition, missiles, and so on, and the obvious question is, what is North Korea getting in return? And again, that’s an example of how a player in the Indo Pacific, in East Asia, is coming into the picture in a very significant way in terms of European security. At the same time, whatever Russia is offering to North Korea will impact security in your region in a significant way.’’

The US State department has reported Russia has received more than 10,000 containers of munitions or munitions-related materials from North Korea since last September while the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that Russia has received 1.5 million artillery shells from North Korea.

Australia has had previous experience working with NATO troops in Afghanistan.

“We know each other well, we know our respective strengths and there is a lot of respect,’’ the official said of Australia; s relationship with NATO troops, but stressing that if Russia prevails in Ukraine that there is a lot of evidence to suggest they may not stop at the border.