On Tuesday, 1 October, NATO Secretary General
Jens Stoltenberg today, October 1, left the post of NATO Secretary General, handing over his duties to his successor, Mark Rutte, the former Prime Minister of the Netherlands.
Before the handover ceremony, Stoltenberg congratulated Rutte in his new position and said that with him “NATO will be in good hands,” the Public edition reports.
Stoltenberg introduced Rutte as a friend and good colleague with whom he had worked for many years, adding that he knew the Alliance well.
He is well known within the Alliance. And Mark has the ideal background to make an excellent General Secretary. He served as prime minister for 14 years, led four different coalition governments, so he knows how to compromise, reach consensus, and these are skills that are highly valued here in NATO, Stoltenberg said.
At the same time, Stoltenberg noted that he had mixed feelings about leaving the Alliance.
It’s time to leave, an excellent successor will come, but it is difficult to leave the Alliance and the organization in which I worked for 10 years. All the people, all the countries I worked with, of course I will miss it. But I leave knowing that we have achieved a lot together over this decade,” he emphasized.
Stoltenberg, who has served as NATO Secretary General since 2014. He was supposed to leave his post on October 1, 2022, but in March 2022, NATO leaders during a summit decided to extend his mandate until September 30, 2023, and then extended this mandate for another year.
Rutte was officially confirmed as NATO Secretary General in June this year.
Source: “Public”
Source: Racurs
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