The Latest: Poland: Ukraine can join NATO if fighting stops

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The Latest on the NATO Summit in Warsaw (all times local):

11:20 a.m.

Poland’s foreign minister says NATO is open to Ukraine’s ambition to join the military alliance but any talks will be possible only after the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is solved.

Minister Witold Waszczykowski spoke Saturday at the start of the second day of a NATO summit in Warsaw.

In its key decision, the meeting has boosted the alliance’s defenses on its eastern flank, where nations are nervous about their security after Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine and supports separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The NATO agenda on Saturday includes a meeting between the leaders of the 28 NATO member nations and Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko, who has been invited as a guest.

Waszczykowski say as a political climate is building in Ukraine in favor of becoming a NATO member in the future. He also said another country, Georgia, is “eligible and is ready” to join NATO and the decision depends on the “will and the determination on our part.”

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10:50 a.m.

Over dinner, NATO leaders gave a glum assessment of Russia’s geopolitical intentions, a NATO official says, agreeing that Moscow “is likely to exploit any vulnerability” in the Western Balkans, Moldova and Ukraine.

The official, who was not authorized to make public remarks and spoke on condition of anonymity, says President Barack Obama and the other alliance leaders agreed during their Friday evening discussion that they need to maintain “a firm and united stance” on Russia and that Moscow “has to deliver” on its commitments under the Minsk agreements designed to stop the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

One particular focus of the NATO leaders during dinner was the Western Balkans and the independent nations that once were part of Yugoslavia, like Macedonia.

— John-Thor Dahlburg

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9:30 a.m.

U.S. President Barack Obama and other NATO leaders have begun the second day of a summit meeting in Warsaw that’s expected to lead to decisions about Afghanistan, the central Mediterranean and Iraq.

On Friday, leaders approved the deployment of four multinational NATO battalions to Poland and the Baltic states to deter Russia, as well as a Romanian-Bulgarian brigade for the Black Sea region.

The Warsaw summit, NATO’s first in two years, is considered by many to be the alliance’s most important since the Cold War.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says NATO needs to adapt to confront an array of new threats to its member nations’ security, including cyberattacks and violent extremism generated by radical Muslim organizations like the Islamic State group.