April 8, Minister of National Defence Arvydas Anušauskas discussed security situation in light of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the options of further rendering assistance to Ukraine and the need to enhance NATO’s Eastern flank at a meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iceland Thórdís Kolbrún Reykfjörd Gylfadottir.
“We aim and we make every effort to strengthen the eastern borders of NATO, so that actual NATO reinforcement can arrive swiftly and the NATO defence plans and decisions would be immediately actionable,” Minister of National Defence A.Anušauskas said at the meeting and thanked Iceland for contributing to the NATO enhanced Forward Presence Battalion Battle Group.
Minister A. Anušauskas voiced Lithuania’s will to strengthen air defence and transition the NATO Air Policing Mission to an air defence mission which should be coupled with deployment of air defence systems in the region.
Ministers also discussed defence spending and cooperation in regional formats.
Lithuania and Iceland cooperate on security and defence in multinational formats mostly: NATO, NB8 (format for cooperation of eight Nordic and Baltic countries), the United kingdom-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) which Iceland joined in April 2021.
Iceland is the only member of NATO that does not have its own armed forces. The country, however, has a role in shaping the regional security environment and contributes finance and civilian personnel to NATO operations.
