Deputy Crown Prince Meets with British, Italian, US, German Ministers of Defense in Brussels

Brussels- Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, the Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, on Thursday led the delegation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia taking part in the meeting of the international coalition countries to counter ISIS, at the headquarters of NATO in the Belgian capital Brussels, hosted by the United States.

HRH Prince Mohammed met separately with UK Secretary of State for Defense Michael Fallon, Italian Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and German Defense Minister Ursula Gertrud Leyen on the sidelines of the meeting of international coalition countries to fight ISIS group.

Talks during the meetings dealt with issues of common interest between the Kingdom and those countries in the field of defense, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

The ministers lauded the leading step taken by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia regarding the formation of the Islamic Military Alliance for Combating Terrorism which will support the international efforts for combating terrorist groups, including ISIS group.

Later that day, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance agreed to deploy NATO airborne command and control aircraft in order to free up similar US aircraft for the campaign in Syria and Iraq.

“We are looking into how we can step up our effort” beyond that, Stoltenberg said, suggesting that no additional NATO military contributions are imminent.