NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Photo/REUTERS
Monday’s announcement comes just days after legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh said the United States and Norway were behind an explosion in September in the Nord Stream pipeline under the Baltic Sea.
“Protection of critical underwater infrastructure will also be high on our agenda,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels, after a meeting of NATO defense ministers.
According to him, “NATO has been working on this for years, and we are now taking it to the next level.”
“A new coordination cell will be established at NATO Headquarters to map our vulnerabilities, and engage with industry, which will support our efforts to prevent and counter threats to critical infrastructure, including undersea cables and pipelines,” Stoltenberg said.
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He said further action would be decided at a NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July.
Stoltenberg, who was Norway’s prime minister before taking the helm of NATO in 2014, did not address Hersh’s story last Wednesday. NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu also did not mention it.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist accuses the US of ordering the destruction of a gas pipeline that runs from Russia to Germany. According to the report, Norway helped carry out the bombing.
