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
President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė congratulated her Italian counterpart, President Giorgio Napolitano, on the Italian national holiday, the Republic Day.
more »
The European Union supports and promotes the region through the Baltic Sea Strategy, specially designed to encourage regional cooperation.
more »
One of the most important topics for Lithuania - efforts to overcome energy isolation of Lithuania and other Baltic States and to strengthen energy security in the Baltic Sea region – is included into the agenda of the Baltic Development Forum (BDF) Summit, which started on 1 June in Vilnius.
more »
President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė will have a meeting with the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, in Vilnius.
more »
On 28 May in Vilnius, Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis met with ambassadors of NATO countries, who reside in Lithuania.
more »
New British Foreign Secretary William Hague sent a letter to Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs A. Ažubalis, highlighting the determination to continue and to broaden the close working relationship that the UK and Lithuania shares both bilaterally and within the framework of the EU and NATO.
more »
At the meeting of foreign ministers from the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on 25-26 May in Madrid, Lithuania’s Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Šarūnas Adomavičius invited Southeast Asian countries to contribute to the implementation of projects in the province of Ghor, Afghanistan, where Lithuania leads a Provincial Reconstruction Team.
more »
On 27 May in Vilnius, Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis met with prominent figure of the world’s Lithuanian community, scientist and conservationist Dr. Birutė Galdikas.
more »
President Dalia Grybauskaitė extended congratulations to President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia on national holiday - Republic Day.
more »
Next Tuesday, June 1 at 17.00 hours, President Dalia Grybauskaitė will meet with the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Angela Merkel, who will be in Vilnius on a working visit.
more »