News

On December 3, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chairman of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe Antanas Valionis participated in the 9TH Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Bucharest. Head of the Permanent Representation at the International Organizations in Vienna Šarūnas Adomavičius also took part in the meeting. At the plenary session of the Council of Ministers Lithuanian Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis delivered a report where he presented the relevance of the priorities of Lithuania's Chairmanship in the Council of Europe to the OSCE activities. The Minister stressed that Lithuania chairing the Council of Europe has focused on strengthening international co-operation and international legal measures to stop terrorism. Minister Valionis observed the measures, presently applied and are planned to be implemented to combat terrorism, welcomed the OSCE intention to draw up an action plan for fighting terrorism and called the OSCE for co-operated and coordinated actions. In his report the Foreign Minister presented the promotion of regional co-operation as the main goal of the session of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which is to be held in May 2002, in Vilnius. Antanas Valionis also briefed the participants about the international conference to be held next year in Vilnius, which is aimed to promote coming into force of the UN convention against organized international crime. Minister Valionis underlined the encouragement of trust and openness in military sphere as an important priority of Lithuania. He mentioned the agreements with Russia and Belarus on the application of additional bilateral measures increasing trust and security, which were drafted this year. The Minister hailed the enforced Treaty on Open Skies and expressed Lithuania's wish to join this agreement. The Lithuanian Foreign Minister is to take part in the Quadripartite meeting between the present Chairman of the OSCE, Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Dan Geoana, Secretary General of the Council of Europe Walter Schwimmer and Secretary General of the OSCE Jan Kubiš. Minister Valionis also met Josep Piqué, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, taking over next presidency of the European Union during the first half of 2002; Per Stig Møller, the newly appointed Foreign Minister of Denmark; Ismail Cem, the Foreign Minister of Turkey; and Hildegard C.Puwak, the Romanian Minister of European Integration; Jaime Gama, the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs and the successive Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, Anna Lindh, the Swedish minister of Foreign Affairs. On December 4, a work breakfast for the Foreign Ministers of the "Vilnius Ten Group" -the NATO aspirant countries - was held.