BRUSSELS, October 26. /TASS/. As many as six NATO countries are prepared to send their ground-based, naval and air force units to the Black Sea area in 2017, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday upon the completion of the first day of a conference of the North-Atlantic pact's defense ministers.

Russian NATO envoy says Black Sea will never be "NATO’s lake"

He said Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Turkey, and the U.S. had confirmed their plans to dispatch units to Romania for a strengthening of NATO presense in the Black Sea area.

Seventeen NATO member-states will delegate their military to join the four multinational battalions, which the North-Atlantic pact will deploy in Eastern Europe at the beginning of 2017.

Specifically, he said Albania, Italy, Poland, and Slovenia will join the Canadian military already depoloyed in Latvia, Belgium, Croatia, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway will join the Germans in Lithuania. Denmark and France will send unit to pool with the Brits in Estonia, while Romania and Britain will augment the U.S. troops in Poland.

Russia-NATO council meeting

NATO is ready to hold a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council at the level of ambassadors, Stoltenberg said.

In his words, NATO members are ready to hold a Russia-NATO Council meeting in the near future.