Rubio meets NATO chief, calls for boost in defence production

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has met with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on the sidelines of the Alliance’s foreign ministers’ meeting in Sweden, where he stressed the need to expand NATO’s defence production and strengthen its industrial base.

In a post on social media platform X, Rubio said in his meeting with the NATO Secretary General, he emphasised that at the upcoming summit in Ankara, the Alliance must clearly state its commitment to turning spending commitments into real combat capabilities, Caliber.Az reports.

In my meeting with @SecGenNATO I underscored that the Alliance must unambiguously commit at the upcoming Ankara Summit to rapidly scale defense production, expand our transatlantic defense industrial base, and turn spending commitments into real warfighting capabilities. A… pic.twitter.com/5ijDgpGbNy

— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) May 22, 2026

“A strong Europe means a strong NATO,” Rubio wrote.

The upcoming NATO summit will be held in Ankara, Türkiye, on June 7-8.

By Bakhtiyar Abbasov