US Ambassador to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Julianne Smith Friday said the “door is open” for India if New Delhi intends to engage with the military alliance​, ​ even ​as bringing the country onboard as a member is not being considered at present.

"The NATO alliance is open to more engagement should India seek that. NATO currently has 40 different partners around the World and each individual partnership is different. Various countries come to the door seeking different levels of political engagement, sometimes countries are much more interested in working on inter-operability, and standardization questions. So, they vary. But, the message that has already been sent back to India is that NATO alliance is certainly open to more engagement with India, should that country take interest in pursuing that", said Julianne Smith in a virtual press briefing.

During the special briefing, Ambassador Julianne Smith thoroughly discussed NATO and its strengthening relationships with South Asia and the Indo-Pacific. While sharing the same she stressed that "membership is not something that we have really considered with anyone in the Indo-Pacific or Asia-Pacific.”

“The alliance remains the Euro-Atlantic military alliance. Its door is open to the region. But there are no plans by the alliance to expand this to a broader global military alliance," she added.

Notably, the US ambassador said, "at this stage, we would not want to invite them (India) to NATO ministerial until we knew more about their interest in engaging the alliance more broadly". The meeting of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs would be taking place on April 4-5, 2023 at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels. 

"Regarding the Ministerial next week, 4 countries that I mentioned (Australia, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea and Japan), are four countries that have already established formal partnerships with the alliance over many years. They worked closely with the NATO alliance on security challenges. These relationships have been ongoing. We have been working to strengthen these relationships. These are four countries that joined us at the summit last year in Madrid," said Smith.

Further, she has appreciated India's role in the Russia-Ukraine war and said that she has been grateful and appreciated the humanitarian assistance by India. "We both at NATO and United States, welcome what India has been able to do for the people of Ukraine. We are very grateful for the humanitarian assistance that India has been able to provide which is critical right now and those needs are only growing. Certainly, appreciate calls coming from India for some sort of immediate end to the war in Ukraine. That's important," said Smith. 

The remarks come at a time when major geopolitical changes have been seen in Europe and Indo-Pacific region amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Chinese aggressive actions from ASEAN to India. Moscow has blamed the current Ukraine conflict on the expansion of NATO, something that has been dismissed by the member countries of the alliance.

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