TALLINN, Jun 15, BNS – The meeting between US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on Thursday was devoted to the 85th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Baltic countries and the United States, but also the issue of cyber defense was addressed.
Condoleezza Rice and the Baltic foreign ministers, Urmas Paet of Estonia, Artis Pabriks of Latvia and Petras Vaitiekunas of Lithuania, spoke about the cyber attacks against Estonia during the past one and a half months and discussed the allies’ tactics in dealing with such threats of a new type.
Paet said the cyber attacks against Estonia revealed shortcomings in cyber defense. “To effectively fight against cyber attacks we need both international treaties as well as agreements between the private and the public sectors,” he said.
The Estonian foreign minister informed his colleagues about the NATO cyber defense center now being instituted in Tallinn and extended to the United States an invitation to despatch its experts to it. Rice said that it was an important initiative to which the US would certainly react.
Paet raised also the issue of visa freedom at the meeting, underlining importance of the issue for Estonia. Rice underlined that the US administration had now taken a clear trend to the abolition of visas and the matter was in the legislation, to the amendement of which the administration was giving its strong supported.
Paet expressed the hope that the US Congress would as as soon as possible pass the bills that would make it possible to abolish the visa requirement.
Speaking about Estonian-Russian relations, Foreign Minister Paet described the situation and said that Estonia had remained open for further communication.
“At the same time improvement of relations will largely depend on further Russian steps,” he said. Paet thanked the United States for strong support during the Russian attacks.
The four ministers discussed recent developments in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo. Concerning Kosovo, the United States is of the opinion that it is necessary to move on from the present situation towards Kosovo’s independence within a reasonable time.
Paet said that Estonia supported United Nations special envoy Martti Ahtisaari’s plan. “Unity of the United Nations Security Council in defining Kosovo’s status is very important,” he underlined.
Rice thanked the Baltic countries for participation in important missions. Besides, further expansion of NATO to the Western Balkans and Georgia was touched upon.
The meeting of the Baltic foreign ministers with the US secretary of state was followed by a State Deparmtnet reception to mark the 85th anniversariy of the establishment of diplomatic relations.
According to the Latvian Foreign Ministry Rice and Pabriks agreed that they would meet within half a year at a time and place that would be set depending of the ministers’ schedule.
The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry said that Vaitiekunas invited Rice to festivities in Vilnius next January to mark the tenth anniversary of the signing of the US-Baltic partnership charter.
Tallinn newsroom, +372 610 8861, [email protected]