France, March 19 -- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is touring three Nato partner countries in the Caucasus, two of them divided by warfare - with two NATO member states backing each of the belligerents.

Stoltenberg started his three-day tour on Sunday inAzerbaijan, host of the upcoming Cop29, the UN climate change summit.

In a joint press conference with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, he stressed the need to fight global warming, and called climate change a "crisis multiplier" with implications for global security.

Praising energy-rich Azerbaijan for its "important role in delivering (natural) gas to key NATO allies," Stoltenberg said "the challenge is that the world needs energy, but at the same time we need to fight glo...