Montenegro PM says Trump push ‘completely harmless event’

BERLIN – The prime minister of Montenegro says he has no hard feelings about President Donald Trump pushing past him at a NATO summit in Brussels last month.

In a scene that went viral on the internet, Trump appeared to shove Prime Minister Dusko Markovic to get to the front of the group as NATO leaders entered the alliance’s new headquarters building.

But Markovic, whose tiny Balkan nation joined NATO on Monday, said in an interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper Tuesday that the Brussels incident was no big deal.

He concedes that “contact took place, which the media referred to as pushing” but that he “did not perceive it like that.”

It was, he says, “a completely harmless event.”

Markovic said the U.S. president should be “next to” the NATO Secretary General.