March 8,2016
SECRETARYKERRY: Good afternoon, everybody. My greatpleasure to welcome Marina Kaljurand, the foreign minister of Estonia. And I’mreally happy to have her here in Washington, because we, unfortunately, had topostpone twice – my fault – because of emergency travel. And I’m very, verygrateful to Marina for her understanding of that.
Estonia is avery, very key partner in NATO, a strong ally. I can happily say it has been aleading country on the issue of two percent contribution to NATO. And I want toensure that the people of Estonia know that our commitment under Article 5, ourcommitment to security, is ironclad.
And we’re alsovery grateful for Estonia’s engagement in the effort to make sure that theintegrity and sovereignty of Ukraine are protected. Everybody has a stake inthat issue, but few people have been as clear and as consistent as Estonia hasabout this. And one of the reasons is, obviously, Estonia lives a frontlinestate life, and that is one where they understand the stakes as well asanybody.
They’re also avery innovative trade partner, very much engaged in regional energydiversification and other issues. So we have a number of things to talk abouttoday, including, obviously, countering violent extremism and pushing backagainst any efforts by any country to try to interfere with the sovereignty andintegrity of another nation. So welcome to Washington. We’re happy to have youhere.
FOREIGNMINISTER KALJURAND: Thank you. Thank you. Thankyou. It’s a pleasure to be back again in Washington, D.C. It’s a pleasure tomeet you, Secretary.
SECRETARYKERRY: And you know what (inaudible).
FOREIGNMINISTER KALJURAND: Dear John, thank you for yourhospitality. I’m sure that we will have good talks today, and I’m really happyto be here.
I’d like to takethe opportunity to express my gratitude and the gratitude of Estonian peopleand Estonian nation to the United States for your support and for yourleadership, which is extremely important in today’s changed security situation,which concerns Europe and even more widely.
Yes, we are verygood friends, allies, partners. Our bilateral relations are excellent. Butthere is always room for improvement, even for excellent relations. So today,we – I hope to discuss the upcoming NATO Summit in Warsaw. Estonia is among thenations that contributes two percent of GDP to defense. We understand thedifficult or the complex security situation in Europe, and we are not consumersbut we are also providers of security. So we are vocal in NATO, in the EU, inother organizations. We support democracy; we support freedom of other nationsto choose their future. So I’ll be happy to discuss conflict of Russia andUkraine, Ukraine more widely.
You mentionedenergy. And we are very happy to cooperate in all the issues concerning cyber,cyber and IT, cyber security. We were the first countries in the world toconclude a memorandum of understanding on cyber security, and we see there is alot of possibilities for even closer bilateral relations, and of course wider securityquestions – Syria, energy security. So we have a lot to discuss.
Thank you onceagain for having me. It’s a pleasure. Thank you.
SECRETARYKERRY: Thank you very much. Thank you.