WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will conduct training of some 30,000 military personnel in Spain, Italy and Portugal this fall, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation Gen. Jean-Paul Palomeros said on Wednesday.
“[In] October, November we will train around 30,000 in the south — in Spain, Italy, Portugal,” Gen. Palomeros told journalists at a press conference in Washington, DC.
The NATO Commander noted it is “a great demonstration that NATO is doing its business,” preparing for the whole spectrum of possible threats to the Alliance on its southern flank.
On March 2, US 173rd Airborne Brigade Commander Michael Foster told Sputnik that the United States will be expanding in the next four months its commitment to NATO’s Operation Atlantic Resolve with a brigade-level deployment to Bulgaria and Romania.
Operation Atlantic Resolve was agreed to by the Alliance in June 2014 in response to some alleged "Russian aggression". The Operation is intended to reassure NATO allies of the Alliance’s collective security commitment to all member states, according to NATO.
