U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has condemned President Donald Trump‘s false claims that non-American NATO troops “stayed a little back” from the front line during the war in Afghanistan.
“I consider President Trump’s remarks to be insulting and, frankly, appalling,” said Starmer on Friday, adding he was not surprised the comments had caused “such hurt” across the country.
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Starmer paid tribute to the “457 [members] of our armed services who lost their lives in Afghanistan” and vowed to never forget the sacrifice they made to the United Kingdom. He also paid respect to the many more who were injured, “some with life-changing” injuries.
When told that some are calling for an apology from Trump, the U.K. Prime Minister appeared to be in agreement, although he stopped short of telling the President to apologize.
“If I had misspoken in that way, or said those words, I would certainly apologize,” he said.
As he did earlier in the week when denouncing Trump’s tariffs threat, Starmer doubled down on the importance of the “very close relationship” between the U.K. and U.S., but said it’s because of that alliance that the U.K. “fought alongside the Americans for our values in Afghanistan.”
During an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Trump said he was unsure if NATO would be there to support the U.S. if it were needed.
“We’ve never needed them, we have never really asked anything of them. You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that, and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines,” he claimed.
Trump has repeatedly aired his grievances with NATO and recently refused to ruled out leaving the alliance over his contentious push to annex Greenland.
NATO’s Article 5, in which all members consider “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all,” has only been activated once, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks in the U.S. in 2001.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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