Slovakia says it and six other countries would become NATO members at a ceremony on April 2 in Brussels
Published:
3 March 2004 y., Wednesday
Slovakia says it and six other countries would become NATO members at a ceremony on April 2 in Brussels, months before a summit originally planned to welcome them in June.
"There will probably be a ceremony in Brussels on the level of foreign ministers in April... but we are still not sure what the official ceremony will be like," said Slovak Foreign Ministry spokesman Juraj Tomaga.
Mr Tomaga says there would probably be another celebration to mark the landmark enlargement sometime later.
Ex-communist states Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria were initially expected to join NATO at a flag-raising ceremony in Istanbul at the end of June.
Their admission will take the defence alliance from 19 to 26 members.
NATO's first wave of eastward expansion came in 1999 when Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined. This enlargement will extend the 54-year-old alliance's land-link to its furthest eastern member Turkey.
NATO's most influential member, the United States, is expected to shift military bases from western Europe to the former eastern bloc and sharply reduce its 70,000 troops in Germany, a legacy of the Cold War.
Šaltinis:
abc.net.au
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
Heads of foreign states bid farewell to the late President of the Republic of Lithuania, Algirdas Mykolas Brazauskas.
more »
Today we say farewell to one of the most prominent Lithuanian politicians, a sincere and open person, a man of principle, Algirdas Brazauskas - the first directly elected president of Lithuania after re-independence.
more »
Head of Cabinet of the Secretary General of the Council of the European Union Marek Mora is paying a visit to Lithuania from 30 June to 1 July.
more »
Lithuania‘s Minister of Foreign Affairs A. Ažubalis says, that continuous implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon, energy security, as well as European Union‘s relations with Eastern Neighbourhood countries and Russia would stay on the list of European policy issues that are the most important to Lithuania in the second half of 2010.
more »
President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė calls the decisions adopted by the European Council strategic and important for Lithuania and for the whole European Union.
more »
On 16 June in Vilnius, Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis and Poland’s Minister of National Defence Bogdan Klich discussed successful bilateral cooperation on security and defence matters.
more »
President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė sent congratulations to President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson of the Republic of Iceland on Iceland's national holiday, the Independence Day.
more »
President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė goes on an official visit to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
more »
President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė received a high-ranking government official from China, He Guoqiang.
more »
On the occasion of European Day for Border Guards, the 10th of June, heads of diplomatic missions of the European Union member states in Lithuania visited the Border Guard School in Medininkai.
more »