US vice-president Joe Biden has assured the Baltic states that Washington would honour its Nato commitment to defend any member nation that was attacked, and urged them to ignore comments on the matter from Donald Trump.
The Republican presidential candidate has suggested that under his leadership the US might not automatically fulfil Nato’s so-called article five mutual-defence guarantee.
"I want to make it absolutely clear to all the people in the Baltic states: we have pledged our sacred honour, the United States of America . . . to the Nato treaty and article five," Mr Biden told Baltic leaders in the Latvian capital, Riga.
“The fact that you occasionally hear something from a presidential candidate in the other party . . . is nothing that should be taken seriously, because I don’t think he understands what article five is,” the Democrat added.
“There is continued overwhelming bipartisan agreement in the United States . . . to maintain our commitment to Nato,” Mr Biden insisted.
Central and eastern European states have been rattled by Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and subsequent support for separatist militants in eastern Ukraine.
Security assurances made to Kiev by the US, UK and Russia under the so-called Budapest Memorandum in 1994 failed to prevent the annexation or a conflict in Ukraine that has killed 10,000 people and displaced two million more.
At a summit last month, Nato decided to send western-led battalions to Poland and each of the three Baltic states to deter any possible Russian aggression.
Mr Biden said the deployment would mean that the US “presence will be enhanced, there will be more Nato partners on the Russian border, there will be more than a single ‘tripwire’”.
Lithuania's president, Dalia Grybauskaite, said after talks with Mr Biden that "it is important for us that we are ready, all parties, to confirm our strategic partnership" and that no matter who was in the White House "the United States, their commitments . . . to Nato, to the Baltic region, will stay."
Czech prime minister Bohuslav Sobotka said separately that, judging by the campaign comments of Mr Trump and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, "I see more security if Clinton is elected."
Russian president Vladimir Putin insists he has no designs on Nato countries, but his military has strengthened its presence and increased war games and aerial and naval sorties close to members of the alliance; the Kremlin leader has also expressed some personal admiration for Mr Trump.
Mr Putin wants to persuade EU states to end economic sanctions against Russia over its aggression in Ukraine, and on Tuesday he spoke by telephone with German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Francois Hollande.
The Kremlin said the trio agreed to meet for talks on the sidelines of a G20 summit in China on September 4th-5th – something Mr Putin said was pointless earlier this month after an alleged Ukrainian raid on Russian servicemen in Crimea.
Ukraine denied launching any attack and called Mr Putin's claims a pretext for more aggression; it is not clear if Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko will attend the planned talks in China.
