The two-day gathering begins in Warsaw on Friday, at 2.30 pm, with an official opening officiated by the host of the event, Polish President Andrzej Duda and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. The ceremony will be staged at the National Stadium, the key summit venue.
Shortly after, the leaders and prime ministers of NATO states will hold the first round of talks, focusing on security in Central and Eastern Europe. The meeting will be attended by top officials from Montenegro, which signed a NATO Accession Protocol in May.
An air parade with 36 military aircraft is scheduled to take place in the air space over Warsaw at 7.30 pm.
In the evening, the Presidential Palace will be the venue of a working dinner, to be attended by leaders from Finland and Sweden, alongside European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk.
Foreign and defence ministers as well as representatives of NATO partner countries will be taking part in meetings and working visits in the capital.
Talks will continue at the capital’s National Stadium on Saturday morning, starting with a meeting devoted to Afghanistan. The event will be attended by NATO’s state and government leaders, alongside representatives of 19 NATO partner countries and international organisations and bodies, including the NATO Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan.
Jordanian leaders and top officials from the European Commission and the European Council are to participate in the second session of the day.
The gathering will be followed by a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission, where NATO country leaders will hold talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Parallel to the sessions, defence and foreign ministers will be holding separate talks throughout the summit.
Ahead of the two-day event, a NATO Experts' Forum will open on Friday morning and will run until Saturday.
The summit will also be preceded by a NATO-EU meeting, as well as talks between President Andrzej Duda and his US counterpart, Barack Obama. Talks between the pair will cover security alongside other issues and will take 45 minutes, Marek Magierowski, a spokesman for Poland's head of state, has said.
The NATO summit, the largest to date, is expected to confirm details of plans to station four multinational battalions on a rotating basis in Poland and the Baltic states, which all fear potential Russian aggression after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. (aba/pk)
Source: Polish Radio