On February 5 Minister of National Defence Juozas Olekas met with the Minister of Defence of Latvia Raimonds Vējonis who had been appointed to the position early this year. At the meeting at the Air Base of the Lithuanian Air Force the two leading defence officials addressed perspectives of cooperation in bilateral and Baltic countries' formats.
This was the first meeting of Minister R.Vējonis and Minister J.Olekas. The Lithuanian Minister introduced the guest with the Air Base that has been hosting NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission since March 29, 2004. The Minister also met with the U.S. Air Force Contingent currently conducting Baltic Air Policing tasks and observed a demonstration flight with F-15C Eagle fighter-jets.
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Lithuanian and Latvian Defence Ministers also discussed issues of Baltic cooperation and NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission. Discussions on the Baltic Air Surveillance Network (BALTNET), Lithuanian-Latvian cooperation in the NATO Response Force (NRF) and the European Union Battle group (EU BGs), cooperation between the countries' navies, activities carried out by the NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence (NATO ENSEC COE) in Vilnius and the course of establishing the NATO Center of Excellence for Strategic Communication (NATO StratCom COE) in Latvia were also on the meeting agenda.
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Info: Air base, photo - A. Glazauskas
