TALLINN, Estonia — NATO’s top official said Thursday that the alliance should take steps to support President Obama’s ambitious nuclear disarmament agenda, but he made clear that there are limits — specifically, that U.S. atomic weapons should not be removed from Europe.
Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen spoke as NATO foreign ministers discussed for the first time in more than a decade whether to get rid of the last remnants of the U.S. nuclear force that blanketed Western Europe during the Cold War.
Some European politicians see withdrawal of the roughly 200 remaining short-range arms as a relatively easy way to support Obama’s campaign to achieve “a world without nuclear weapons.”
But others, particularly in former Warsaw Pact countries, worry that their elimination could send the wrong signal to Russia or other potential antagonists.
U.S. officials acknowledged that Rasmussen’s feelings are widely shared in the alliance.
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