Georgia, Lithuania Call on Baltic, Caucasus States for Closer Ties

Lithuanian and Georgian Foreign Ministers, Antanas Valionis and Salome Zourabichvili signed a joint letter on October 6 inviting the foreign ministers of Latvia, Estonia, Azerbaijan and Armenia to develop Lithuania?s initiative concerning cooperation of three Baltic States and three Caucasian States.

According to the press release issued by the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry on October 7, Antanas Valionis and Salome Zourabichvili proposed to organize the meeting of six foreign ministers in Brussels, where the ministers of NATO and partner states are to gather in December.

According to Lithuanian and Georgian foreign ministers the reforms and regional cooperation experience of the Baltic States is a good example for Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan on their way to European and Euro-Atlantic structures.

Foreign Ministers? meeting in Brussels would be an important step preparing the meeting of the Presidents of three Baltic and three Caucasian states which is planned to take place in Vilnius in 2006, according to the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili also expressed hope on October 5 that Georgia will manage to enforce ?three plus three? format, which means the establishment of close cooperation between three Baltic – Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia – and three South Caucasian ? Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan – countries. 

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