NATO defense ministers to discuss possible increase of presence in air and at Black Sea - Stoltenberg

Defense ministers of NATO members at a meeting in October will discuss the possible increase of the Alliance's presence in the air and at the Black Sea, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said.

"We also decided to ask our military planners to provide advice for our defense ministers in October to look into whether we can or how we can increase our presence not on land, because that will be provided with a brigade, but in the air and at sea," he said at a press release late on Friday after the Summit in Warsaw asked if NATO strengthens the security for the countries around the Black Sea.

"And several of the nations addressed the need for an enhanced presence at sea and in the air but we will be more concrete about that at our defence ministerial meeting in October," he said.

"We agreed today what we call tailored forward presence in the southeast and that is based on a Romanian-Bulgarian brigade, and that will provide a framework for extensive training of NATO forces, so it will be a multinational presence under this Romanian-Bulgarian brigade, and we'll then have more forces, more training, taking place in the southeastern part of the alliance," he said.