Pellegrini Points to Slovakia's Lacking Air Defence at Meeting with Stoltenberg

Brussels, June 28 (TASR-correspondent) - NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg could come to Slovakia's aid in ensuring air defence, President Peter Pellegrini said shortly before meeting Stoltenberg in Brussels on Friday
        Pellegrini is set to meet the NATO chief following a two-day EU summit. This will be their second meeting.
        The president noted that EU leaders at the summit bade farewell to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who'll succeed Stoltenberg at the helm of NATO from October 2.
        "We'll talk about Slovakia's 20-year membership of NATO, I want to inform him that Slovakia is a responsible ally and partner and that the amount of spending on the renewal and modernisation of the Slovak armed forces will reach 2.11 percent of GDP," Pellegrini outlined the main topics of his talks with Stoltenberg, adding that he'll stress the need to protect Slovak airspace, which currently isn't protected by any missile systems.
        "I will ask him to indicate possibilities how we could cooperate with one of the Allies that could temporarily provide its defence systems and deploy them somewhere near Slovakia's eastern border," the president said. This, he remarked, would prevent stray missiles from entering Slovak airspace or even targeted attacks by a third party.