U.K.'s Starmer decries Trump remarks on NATO troops

U.S. president falsely claimed allied forces avoided the front lines in Afghanistan.

- BY PAN PYLAS

BRITISH Prime Minister Keir Starmer, right, with Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen on Thursday.

(Andy Rain EPA/Bloomberg)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has signaled that President Trump should apologize for his false assertion that troops from non-U.S. NATO countries avoided the front line during the Afghanistan war, describing Trump’s remarks as “insulting” and “appalling.”

Trump said that he wasn't sure NATO would be there to support the United States if or when requested, provoking outrage and distress across the United Kingdom on Friday, regardless of individuals’ political persuasion.

“We've never needed them, we have never really asked anything of them,” Trump said of non-U.S. troops in an interview with Fox News in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. “You know, they'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that, and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”

In October 2001, nearly a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. led an international coalition in Afghanistan to destroy Al Qaeda, which had used the country as its base, and the group’s Taliban hosts. Alongside the U.S. were troops from dozens of countries, including from NATO, whose mutual-defense mandate had been triggered for the first time after the attacks on New York and Washington.

'Families are left carrying the cost'

In the U.K., the reaction to Trump’s comments was raw. Starmer paid tribute to the 457 British personnel who died and to those who have been left with profound lifelong injuries.