“Estonia and Lithuania are faced with the same security concerns and we have to work closely together to cope with them, both as members of NATO and in planning operations that involve all three Baltic States,” said President Alar Karis at his meeting in Vilnius today with his Lithuanian counterpart Gitanas Nausėda. “We think along much the same lines when it comes to security, and we have to do everything we can to boost our joint capabilities.”
The Estonian head of state congratulated President Nausėda on Lithuania’s election as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, remarking that cooperation and mutual support in international organisations is very important to Estonia, as well as consensus within the European Union and NATO on pressing issues.
“There are challenges in our own region that it is important for us to raise at the international level,” President Karis said. “The hybrid attacks on the Belarusian-EU border in which vulnerable citizens of third countries are being exploited in illegal border-crossings need to be condemned with one voice. Belarus must cease such activity, since behaviour of this kind on the part of the Belarusian regime threatens the security of the entire region. It is a gross violation of human rights, and we must be prepared to impose restrictive new sanctions on Belarus.”
During his meeting in Vilnius, President Karis also discussed with his Lithuanian counterpart the ongoing infrastructure projects involving the Baltic States, including Rail Baltic, the Estonian-Latvian offshore wind farm and the synchronisation of the Baltic electricity networks. The Estonian head of state said that rapid progress needed to be made in all of these projects so as to guarantee the support and funding of the European Union and to provide the region with the impetus required for development. “The construction and modernisation of the infrastructure in our region is a very important issue from the point of view of our economic development,” President Karis remarked. “Rail Baltic is both a regional and an EU project. We have to work together to link our three capitals with the rest of Europe, which is what the EU funding is based on.”
The head of state will be returning to Estonia late this evening.
