Austria Not Planning to Join NATO, Foreign Minister States
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MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Alexander Schallenberg, the Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, stated during a meeting of the Austrian Parliament that the country does not want to become a NATO member.
The Austrian parliament issued a statement on Tuesday saying that recent media reports about a letter to NATO, among the authors of which are representatives of Austria, have raised questions about the country's rapprochement with NATO.
"We have no intention of joining it [NATO]," the parliament quoted Schallenberg as saying in the statement.
Austria, together with Ireland, Malta and Switzerland, has the intention to share information with the alliance and make neutral states noticeable, the minister said.
"We do not want to be forgotten," he added.
Earlier on Tuesday, Austrian newspaper die Presse reported, citing a letter sent by diplomats to NATO in December 2023 and obtained by the newspaper, that Austria, Ireland, Malta and Switzerland intend to strengthen their relations with NATO. The representatives of the said countries make specific proposals on how cooperation could be developed, ranging from the possibility of participating in additional joint exercises to increase "interoperability" — since military systems must be harmonized with each other, and NATO sets the standards — to "privileged access to documents and information."
