The European Union has got a green light from Lithuania to launch the planned talks with Russia on forging a new strategic partnership, after Vilnius agreed Sunday to drop its objections to the talks.
Foreign ministers from Sweden, Poland and EU president Slovenia met Sunday with their Lithuanian counterpart Petras Vaitiekunas in Vilnius, in an attempt to convince the Baltic country to support the EU-Russian talks.
Addressing a press conference after the meeting, Vaitiekunas said Lithuania has agreed to drop objections to the EU-Russian talks planned for next month, because the EU has agreed to include Lithuania's concerns in the mandate document for the talks.
"After today's negotiations we may say that the EU may rely on Lithuania and your country may rely on the EU," Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel told reporters, adding that he believed the other 23 member countries would support the talks with Russia.
Rupel, joined by Vaitiekunas, Sweden's Carl Bildt and Poland's Radoslaw Sikorski, is scheduled to fly to Georgia Monday to continue the efforts to get support from all EU member countries for the talks, which are aimed at forging a new EU-Russian strategic partnership.
Any of the 27 member countries could block the talks, through which the EU wants to sign with Russia a new strategic cooperative treaty, replacing a 10-year treaty signed in 1997, in order to obtain stable supplies of oil and gas from Russia.
The talks, however, have stalled due to Lithuania's objections. The Baltic country asks Russia to restore its oil supplies via the "Friendship" pipeline, which were disrupted in summer of 2006, to resolve disputes with Georgia and other ex-Soviet republics, and to take responsibilities for some historical events in the Lithuanian-Russian relations.
Source:Xinhua
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