NATO to skip a leaders’ summit in Albania next year as high-level meetings are scaled back

BRUSSELS: NATO is scaling back its high-level meetings and will not hold a leaders’ summit in Albania next year as previously planned amid tension within the alliance over defense spending, Iran and the war in Ukraine.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said Thursday that “there is not yet a common position on when the summit will happen, for sure not in 2027.” He said that “in 2028, if it will be a summit, it will be in Tirana,” Albania’s capital.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte played down the issue. “We are flexible with NATO summits,” he told The Associated Press in an interview. “We have summits when we need them,” he said, and will hold the next one “when a necessity is there.”