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Ten years ago, on 4 January 1994, the then President of the Republic of Lithuania Algirdas Brazauskas sent a letter to the then NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner, stating officially Lithuania’s striving to become the Alliance’s member. According to Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antanas Valionis, Lithuania’s determination to join NATO embodied the will of our country and all its citizens to return to the community of Western countries, from which we had been torn away for fifty years. In the Minister’s opinion, the fact that in ten years we found ourselves on the threshold of implementing the strategic goals of the Lithuanian foreign and security policy testifies the will of our citizens and continuity of the policy. In Minister Valionis’ belief, we would not have reached this without firm and clearly stated support of the Lithuanian people as well as the daily efforts. Today Lithuania participates in ten NATO and other international peacekeeping operations, where some 240 Lithuanian troops take part. The Minister underlined that Lithuania would be a reliable NATO ally and would strive to strengthen the Northern Atlantic Organisation by all possible means. “We will continue contributing to the consolidation of key goals of NATO – security and stability. I have also confirmed this in my letter of congratulation to newly appointed NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer,” the Minister said. “Ten years is comparatively a short period of time. The progress achieved in such a short time demonstrates the maturity of our state and society. We are considered reliable partners, we are trusted by NATO and EU member states. We have to maintain the accumulated capital of reliability and increase it further. The membership in NATO and the EU will contribute to the final and irreversible consolidation of Lithuania’s sovereignty and independence,” Antanas Valionis stated. Lithuania was invited to accede to NATO at the Prague NATO Summit on 21 November 2002. On 17 March 2003, Minister of Foreign Affairs Antanas Valionis wrote an official letter to former NATO Secretary General George Robertson, officially confirming Lithuania’s aspirations to join NATO. Together with the letter, a schedule of Lithuania’s reforms was handed to the Alliance, presenting the country’s commitments in the spheres of policy, economy, defence, resource, security and law. In the North Atlantic Council’s session of 26 March 2003 in Brussels, where the foreign ministers of the seven NATO invitees also participated, ambassadors of the 19 present NATO member states signed the new members’ accession to the Washington Treaty protocols and thus began their ratification process that should be over before spring 2004. Lithuania and the six other NATO invitees from the Central and South-eastern Europe will become full-fledged members of the Alliance before the NATO Summit scheduled for 28-29 June this year in Istanbul.