News

On  April 16, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius met with Rose Gottemoeller, the United States Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security to discuss European security issues.

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister stressed that bearing in mind the current security situation it is necessary to strengthen defence and deterrence capabilities and implement fully respective NATO Wales Summit decisions. Lithuania does its homework by increasing defence spending, reintroducing military conscription and by investing  into host nation support infrastructure. The Minister emphasized that it is important to mobilize the international community’s assistance to the Eastern Partners, particularly to Ukraine. The Foreign Minister thanked the U.S. Government for its support and excellent cooperation in developing Lithuania’s defence capabilities. The U.S. official congratulated Lithuania’s good economic performance and efforts to strengthen its own security and pledged targeted practical support of the United States of America for defence projects.

Prior to the meeting, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Andrius Krivas and Rose Gottemoeller held security policy consultations and discussed a wide range of issues, including cooperation in the field of defence, status of implementation of arms control agreements, missile defence, nuclear non-proliferation and  nuclear security. Rose Gottemoeller thanked Lithuania for its active role and contribution to the Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) process initiated by U.S. President Barak Obama - a NSS high-level (Sherpa) meeting in preparation for the next summit is to be held in June 2015 in Vilnius.