Decision on future of Ramstein format will be made by next US administration - Pentagon chief Austin
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin dodged the question of the future of the Contact Group on Ukraine's Defense (Ramstein format) after the arrival of the Donald Trump administration.
This was reported by Censor.NET with reference to Interfax-Ukraine.
"Regarding the contact group: your question is whether the next administration will decide to continue this work. That decision is up to the next administration, and I'm not going to speculate on what direction they're going to take," Austin said at a briefing in Germany.
However, he emphasized that the group's work is important not only for Ukraine, but also "for the United States of America, for Europe, and for the whole world." The Pentagon chief also assured that Ukraine has bipartisan support in Congress.
"The future administration will have to make its own decisions. We want to make sure that we do everything we can to ensure that we continue to support them and that they have the ability to move in the direction that they want to go," Austin added.
The US Secretary of Defense also noted that he had "heard repeatedly from my colleagues today that they really think this is important and believe that this format has worked well."
"Let's see what happens. Obviously, it's not the only format that can work, but they think it's important," Austin said.
