On June 22 representatives of the Ministry of National Defence and the Lithuanian Armed Forces attended commemoration of the 81st anniversary of the history-making Summer Welles Declaration at Washington Square in Vilnius. The United States of America condemned by the Welles Declaration the illegal occupation and annexation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union.
The Declaration stands as an excellent symbol of the unit between Lithuania and the United States of America.
When the Soviet Union removed the governments of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in 1940, the Declaration was issued by the contemporary U.S. Secretary of State Sumner Welles on July 23 in response, it stated that the U.S. would never recognize the Baltic occupation and annexation, that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia had to be free and independent countries. The Declaration was the beginning of the U.S. nonrecognition of the Baltic annexation policy which condemned the Soviet act of aggression and the forceful, illegal incorporation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into the Soviet Union by means of the Molotov-Ribbentrop collusion.
Today, the United States is one of the key partners and security guarantors of Lithuania. The Americans have and active role in the implementation of assurance measures in the Baltic states and contribute troops, equipment and finance to regional defence.
The commemoration was attended by the Lithuanian Honor Guard Company and the Lithuanian Armed Forces Band.
An excerpt from the 23 July 1940 Welles Declaration:
“The policy of this Government is universally known. The people of the United States are opposed to predatory activities no matter whether they are carried on by the use of force or by the threat of force. They are like-wise opposed to any form of intervention on the part of any one state, however powerful, in the domestic concerns of any other sovereign state, however weak. <…> The United States will continue to stand by these principles, because of the conviction of the American people that unless the doctrine in which these principles are inherent once again governs the relations between nations, the rule of reason, of justice and of law – in other words the basis of modern civilization itself – cannot be preserved.”
Photo credits: Alfredas Pliadis
