Meetings and Discussions

   

Public Lecture by Permanent Representative of Lithuania to NATO Mr. Kestutis Jankauskas

On June 15, 2012 Permanent Representative of Lithuania to NATO Ambassador Kestutis Jankauskas, visited GFSIS to deliver public lecture. Amb. Jankauskas introduced the results of Chicago Summit and underlined three major topics the Summit was focused on:

1. The future of the NATO military capabilities; how the NATO is going to run cooperation prgrammes and multilateral projects, further consolidation the alliance in direction of clear division of competences between member states. Special attention was dedicated to the Summit declaration on defense capabilities that proposes "Smart defense" as a possible effective way to soften economic crisis negative impact on the NATO’s capacity to tackle new threats.

2. How long NATO will keep forces in Afghanistan and what will be the strategy for the “smooth” handover of the control to Afghan security and military was apparently another important topic of discussions in Chicago.

3. Relations with partners was the third important issue at the summit, especially in sense of developing new and mutually beneficial projects with them. Georgia is one of the most important partners of NATO and official acknowledgment of Georgia’s success with democratic reforms and its contribution to ISAF operations should inspire the country for further progress in the areas important in sense of closer rapprochement with the alliance.

The lecture was followed by lively discussion. Ambassador K. Jankauskas answered number of questions. Among them he expressed his views on the potential of the country (Georgia) to join the Alliance and discussed perspectives of NATO and EU deepened cooperation on security and defense.