THE HAGUE: Incoming Dutch prime minister Rob Jetten on Friday ruled out talks with Russia over the war in Ukraine, as he unveiled a new government program including firm support for Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Speaking to AFP after publishing his governing manifesto, the 38-year-old said he would not speak to Moscow as there were currently \u201cno indications\u201d Russia wanted to end the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd as long as the aggression continues, we will continue our support for the Ukrainian people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The 79-page manifesto, hammered out after weeks of tough talks between Jetten and his two coalition partners, pledged no let-up in Dutch support for Kyiv.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fight in Ukraine is about the security of the whole of Europe,\u201d said the document entitled \u201cGetting to Work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we are continuing our own multi-year financial and military support and we will continue to argue for the use of frozen Russian assets,\u201d the manifesto said.<\/p>\n
The new administration also pledged to anchor in law the NATO defense spending minimum of 3.5 percent of economic output pushed by US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Asked about relations with the United States following an unseemly spat between Washington and Europe over Greenland, Jetten called for more European independence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a little bit worried that people in Europe are mainly complaining about what\u2019s happening in the US,\u201d Jetten said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should be having a much stronger debate about what can Europe do for itself,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Jetten, from the centrist D66 party, will now form a cabinet, aiming to be sworn in by mid-February.<\/p>\n
He is on course to become the youngest leader of the European Union\u2019s fifth-largest economy and the first to be openly gay.<\/p>\n
Jetten led his party to a stunning election victory in October, narrowly defeating the far-right Freedom Party headed by firebrand anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders.<\/p>\n
The fragmented nature of the Dutch political system means lengthy coalition haggling follows an election.<\/p>\n
Jetten finally clinched a deal with two center-right parties but will not enjoy a majority in parliament, meaning the government will need the support of other parties to pass legislation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE HAGUE: Incoming Dutch prime minister Rob Jetten on Friday ruled out talks with Russia over the war in Ukraine, as he unveiled a new government program including firm support for Ukraine. Speaking to AFP after publishing his governing manifesto, the 38-year-old said he would not speak to Moscow as there were currently \u201cno indications\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":93051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93053,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93036\/revisions\/93053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}