News

On 20-21 August during the Baltic-Nordic Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Reykjavík, Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Vygaudas Ušackas discussed the Swedish EU presidency, important issues of cooperation of the EU, NATO, United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and other organisations.

Ministers discussed the impact of economic and financial crisis on their countries and regional cooperation, also the situation in Afghanistan, Iran and the Middle East.

Ministers dedicated attention to the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka, where hundreds of thousands of refugees suffered due to unbearable conditions. The Baltic and Nordic Foreign Ministers encouraged the Government of Sri Lanka to take urgent measures in order to solve this humanitarian crisis.

During the meeting, Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs referred to the recent incident, when Lithuanian seamen were taken hostage off the coast of Nigeria, and presented suggestions of ways to intensify the involvement of the Baltic and Nordic States into the fight against the sea piracy, as recently more and more countries suffer from pirates. The Minister suggested to his Baltic and Nordic counterparts to strengthen cooperation through the exchange of information, training of seamen, and promotion of mutual cooperation of maritime administrations of the countries. Lithuania expressed the opinion that the Baltic and Nordic States could intensify their activities in the UN, EU, and NATO, International Maritime Organization and other formats that are combating sea piracy.

Presenting the goals of the forthcoming Lithuanian OSCE chairmanship in 2011, Minister V.Ušackas stressed that Lithuania was going to pursue the promotion of interregional cooperation, demonstrating to other countries the example of a successful cooperation among the Baltic and Nordic States, which is based on mutual understanding, trust and people-to-people ties.

V.Ušackas invited his counterparts to dedicate priority attention to the implementation of plans of the Baltic energy links and was glad about the successful start of the project of energy links with Sweden.

While speaking about Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), V.Ušackas informed the Baltic and Nordic Ministers about the CBSS meeting of Prime Ministers, due in June 2010 in Lithuania, and the Baltic Development Forum meting, which will attract a few hundred representatives of politics, business, science and media from the region.

In 2010, Latvia will take over the coordination of meetings of officials from the Baltic and Nordic States.