General Fulford thanked Estonia for the support to the United States of America in the fight against international terrorism. As he said, the United States are committed to NATO, also to Article 5, which means that if Estonia, when a member of NATO, would be threatened, the United States would come to assistance. General Fulford has visited Estonian soldiers in Bosnia and is convinced that Estonia as a nation and a state shares the same values as the United States and is thus a valuable member of NATO.
As General Fulford said, the allocation of 2 per cent of the GDP to the defence expenditure is certainly a very important message of Estonias commitment. He added that he admired Estonia considerably and understood, how difficult it is to build modern defence forces from scratch in ten years, whereas building up other social structures at the same time. Estonias asset is her mature banking system and control of money flows, and as the General said, in this area Estonia could also advise her neighbours. The General was also impressed by the fact that Estonians are studying in the US military academies, which has certainly helped to restore the culture of Estonian defence forces.
Press Service of the Office of the President
Kadriorg, October 17, 2001
