(VOVworld) - The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford is visiting Germany to reassure Russia’s neighbors they can count on the US.

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr.,chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meets with US Army Gen. David M. Rodriguez, commander, US Africa Command, at Africom headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, Jan. 4, 2016 (defense.gov)

Dunford was scheduled to meet with US commanders responsible for the theater of operations in Europe and Africa. On Thursday, Dunford will also travel to Turkey for talks with General Hulusi Akar, chief of the Turkish General Staff, to discuss the situation in Syria and Iraq, as well as spiraling Sunni-Shiite tensions that have ruptured ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran.