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SECRETARY BLINKEN: France has been a remarkable leader in this effort, both in making sure that Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself and also working to set it up for the long term.  It’s been a leader in burden sharing – billions donated in military and economic assistance to Ukraine – but also rallying other countries, using its leadership to bring others along.  We also see this leadership in the enforcement of sanctions and export controls to limit Putin’s war machine.  We are working day in, day out to effectively prevent the transfer of weapons and materiels to Russia to fuel that war machine, to fuel its defense industrial base, including from Iran, from North Korea, and from China – something that we discussed today.

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QUESTION:  (Via interpreter) Thank you.  Phillipe Ricard, Le Monde.  About Ukraine, I’d like to know whether France and the United States now agree on the possibility of Ukraine at some point joining NATO.  Of course that will be discussed in July at the NATO summit.  And a question on Iran regarding Ukraine.  Did you – we feel there is an increasing – an increased – there’s some increased concerns about the delivery of weapons by Iran.  Do you have any information on that?

FOREIGN MINISTER SÉJOURNÉ:  (Via interpreter) Like we said on the occasion of the summit in Vilnius, I believe the member-states of NATO share the same point of view.  We are supporting the reforms undertaken by Ukraine in order to join NATO, and we shall work in order to prepare this NATO summit, which will be a summit of unity.  This is important, and both France and the United States and – are attached to this unity on that point.  So in the coming hours, in the coming weeks, I believe we will be confirming this unity, and we shall stick to the Vilnius formula, I believe.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  (Via interpreter) Yes, indeed, we did talk about the NATO summit and Ukraine, and we’ll talk about it much – in much greater detail in the coming days in Brussels during the NATO foreign ministers meeting.  As the Allies stated in Vilnius, Ukraine will be a member of NATO.  For us, the issue is having a good and clear roadmap to reach this conclusion.  And I believe that the NATO summit for the 75th anniversary will indeed be highly focused, and quite concretely, as to how we can establish this roadmap.  Or to use another image, the bridge – the necessary bridge to allow Ukraine to become a member of NATO.

And with respect to Iranian missiles, which are being sent to Russia and are being used against the Ukrainian people, indeed we did mention it.  We are working together to try to interrupt, at least penalize, any support of this nature, be it from Iran, North Korea, or elsewhere, including China.  And this is also something that will be mentioned probably with our NATO colleagues in the coming days.

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Source: U.S. Department of State

Speaker: Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Format: Press Conference

Link to Original Source