Vice President Biden says U.S. committed to NATO obligations

RIGA U.S. Vice President Joe Biden assured Baltic countries on Tuesday the United States would respect NATO's pledge to protect them and said comments to the contrary by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump should not be taken seriously.


Biden's visit comes amid heightened tensions with Russia in the region and Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has suggested that he might abandon NATO's pledge to automatically defend all alliance members if elected.


"I want to make it absolutely clear to all the people in Baltic states: we have pledged our sacred honor, the United States of America ... to the NATO treaty and Article Five," Biden said in the Latvian capital.


Biden dismissed Trump's comments and said there was overwhelming U.S. bipartisan commitment to NATO.


"The fact that you occasionally hear something from a presidential candidate in the other party, it's ... nothing that should be taken seriously," Biden said.


The three Baltic states, which regained independence in the early 1990s a half century after being annexed by the Soviet Union, see themselves on the frontline of any potential conflict with Russia.


In July, NATO leaders agreed to deploy military forces to the Baltic states and eastern Poland for the first time and increase air and sea patrols to reassure allies in the region worried about the threat from Russia.


Russia often depicts NATO as an aggressor whose members are moving troops and military hardware further into former Soviet territory, which it regards as its sphere of influence.


On Wednesday, Biden travels to Turkey where he will meet President Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim before visiting Sweden to discuss Europe's asylum crisis the day after.


(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Gederts Gelzis; Editing by Alistair Scrutton)

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