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BRUSSELS, March 13 (Xinhua) -- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday called on all member nations to reach NATO target of spending at least 2 percent of GDP on defense.
Stoltenberg welcomed NATO members' progress on defense spending during the presentation of his 2016 annual report at a press conference.
The report shows that 23 NATO members increased their defense expenditure in real terms by 3.8 percent in 2016.
"But the job is far from done. We still do not have fair burden-sharing within our alliance," said Stoltenberg.
In 2016, five nations spent 2 percent or more of GDP on defense -- the United States, Britain, Greece, Poland and Estonia, according to the report.
"It is realistic that all allies should reach this goal" as all nations have agreed to it at the highest level, Stoltenberg said.
"After the Cold War we saw a decline in defense spending but we actually spent 2 percent of GDP on defense in Europe as late as in the year 2000, meaning that it's possible to do it again," he added.
U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis also stressed fair burden-sharing among members at NATO's defense minister meeting last month.
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly called on NATO allies to "meet their financial obligations".
Stoltenberg also presented his annual report on Monday, which highlighted NATO strengthened its collective defense in 2016 by deploying four multinational battle groups to three Baltic states and Poland.
"At least 17 different Allied countries will contribute troops to these four battle groups and we are on track to have all four battle groups in place by June," Stoltenberg told reporters.
He noted NATO made progress on cyber defence, adding that NATO experts dealt with an average of 500 cyber incidents per month in 2016, a 60-percent increase on the previous year.
NATO has had political dialogue with Russia and held three meetings of the NATO-Russia Council last year, he added.
