Lithuania’s support for Macedonia’s NATO integration, the crisis in Ukraine and Macedonian officers attending training in Lithuania and at the Baltic College in Estonia were some of the topics discussed by the deputy defense ministers of Macedonia and Lithuania, Emil Dimitriev and Marijus Velicka, in Skopje on Wednesday.

Dimitriev thanked his counterpart for the strong support from Lithuania for Macedonia’s EU and NATO integration.

“Lithuania is one of the countries that strongly supports NATO’s open-door policy and this is very significant for us as a country aspiring for full-fledged membership. We are also going to table security issues, including the crisis in Ukraine and the region. We are going to convey our view about the situation in the Western Balkans. I took this opportunity to thank my counterpart for Lithuania’s support in training Macedonian officers in Lithuania and at the Baltic College in Estonia, which Lithuania strongly supports.
One of the topics we are going to raise is also the experience of the Balkan countries of the regional cooperation and the possibility of applying that experience in the context of the Western Balkans in the run-up to the NATO summit in Great Britain,” Dimitriev said.