Foreign ministers Linas Linkevičius of Lithuania, Edgars Rinkēvičs of Latvia, Urmas Reinsalu of Estonia and François-Philippe Champagne of Canada met jointly today in Vilnius for the first time.
The Ministers agreed to a Baltic States - Canada annual meeting at the Ministerial level in order to discuss shared interests and priorities.
They also discussed peace and security issues, mutual defence, as well as geopolitical issues notably Russia, China, Ukraine, and the situations in Belarus, Nagorno Karabakh and Venezuela. The Ministers agreed to keep working on strengthening NATO, transatlantic links, security policy, multilateral engagement, human rights and the issue of arbitrary detention, on which the three Baltic States expressed their solidarity with Canada.
On Belarus, the Ministers met with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and discussed the need to support the Belarusian civil society and the Coordination council. They called for new democratic elections, the cessation of violence against peaceful protestors, and the repression of journalists in Belarus.
The Ministers agreed to further coordinate their actions on the issues discussed, including in multilateral fora.