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Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - BRATISLAVA — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said America is not asking European allies to be vassals, but they need to be less dependent on Washington. Rubio made the remarks in a joint press conference in Bratislava after holding talks with Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Slovakia is the first stop on Rubio's two-state tour of Central Europe, which he began Sunday after attending the Munich Security Conference in recent days.
He traveled to Hungary after Slovakia, for a meeting with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, to discuss bilateral relations and strengthen ties with Trump's allies in the region.
Both Fico and Orbán are key allies of the Trump administration in Europe, aligning with Washington's anti-immigration policies and sharing Trump's vision for ending the war in Ukraine.
Answering a journalist's question, the top US diplomat downplayed the recent US decision to withdraw a limited number of American troops from the continent.
"We're not leaving NATO, we might move a few thousand troops from one country to another, but that's always been the case," Rubio told reporters.
"We don't want Europe to be dependent on us, we're not asking Europe to be a vassal of the United States. We want to be your partner. We want to work with Europe. And our point is: the stronger you are, the stronger the NATO members are, the stronger NATO is."
On Saturday, in his address to the Munich Security Conference, Rubio said the US and Europe share a common destiny but warned that Europe's cultural and economic decline must be reversed and that mass migration must be stopped.
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In January, many EU leaders expressed concern that US President Donald Trump's ambitions to seize Greenland could undermine NATO.
Rubio refused to discuss in detail his recent negotiations with Denmark about Greenland. He also played down Slovak criticism of the US military raid in Venezuela that led to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro.
In January, Robert Fico said the raid was a violation of sovereignty and international law.
"A lot of countries didn't like what we did in Venezuela. That's okay. That was in our national interest. I'm sure there's something he'll do one day that we don't like, and we'll say, hey, we didn't like what you did. So what? That doesn't mean we're not going to be friends," said the US Secretary of State.
Rubio also stressed that central Europe will be a key region for the incumbent administration's engagement with Europe, during Trump's second presidency.
Fico and Rubio discussed nuclear and military cooperation and ongoing peace efforts to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, which reaches its fourth anniversary later this month.
The Slovak premier criticized the EU's approach, as it continues to financially and militarily support Ukraine.
Fico recalled that at the December EU summit, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic abstained when the EU approved a €90 billion support package for Ukraine.
Fico also harshly criticized the European Union's decision to phase out Russian fossil fuel imports by 2027, saying it carries disastrous consequences for his country and others. — Agencies
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