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On 5 March, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antanas Valionis presented the law on ratification of the North Atlantic Treaty to the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas). “It is one of the most important international treaties, ever submitted to the Lithuanian Parliament for ratification,” Antanas Valionis said at the Seimas. According to the Minister, with acceding to NATO we get “such security guarantees, which Lithuania has never had before”. “Our State was striving to achieve that for the entire decade,” Minister Valionis underlined. On 21 November 2002 in Prague, the state and government leaders of the NATO countries invited Lithuania and the other six Central and South-eastern European countries – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia - to start accession to NATO negotiations. Lithuania completed the negotiations in 2003. On 1 March this year, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer notified Lithuania and the other six invitees that all the 19 present NATO member states approved the Protocols of accession to the Alliance and invited Lithuania to start ratification of the North Atlantic Treaty. Lithuania will become a full-fledged NATO member, when the ratification documents of the North Atlantic Treaty will be deposited in the United States of America. This procedure should take place at the end of March this year.