NATO leaders managed to agree on key security and defence issues at the 2019 London Summit, despite there being a few differences among the 29 allies. The meeting was overshadowed by the criticism of French President Emmanuel Macron, who believes that NATO is "brain-dead." In a strong reaction, US President Donald Trump called Macron's statements "very nasty," "disrespectful" and even "dangerous." Although this controversy caused some turbulences at the beginning, the NATO leaders issued a joint 'London Declaration' on 4th December at the end of the two-day summit. During a media briefing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg summarized the results of the summit, which not only celebrated NATO's 70th anniversary but also marked the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. He stated the meeting "has once again demonstrated that NATO remains the only place where Europe and North America discuss, decide and act every day together on strategic issues that concern our shared security." Among the differences which could not be resolved were the political strategy on how to tackle Russia, the right approach for northern Syria and the burden-sharing debate regarding increasing defence spending to the agreed 2% of GDP figure by 2024.
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