Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas says Lithuania should withdraw from the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines. Meanwhile, Defence Minister Dovilė Šakalienė stresses the importance of a regional solution.
“I believe we should withdraw,” the prime minister told reporters at the Presidential Palace after his meeting with President Gitanas Nausėda on Monday,
According to Paluckas, this question was not discussed during the meeting with the president, but he was confident that the Defence and Foreign Ministries would resolve the issue.
Šakalienė says she has not yet received official military advice on Lithuania’s withdrawal from the convention. She has previously said that such advice would be the key element in making a decision on the issue.
“There’s been no official military advice yet [...]. Our military advice will be ready shortly and then we will have the official position of the armed forces,” the defence minister told reporters on Monday.
In her words, the goal is to have a common regional strategy and the upcoming meetings with her counterparts “will allow discussing the issue”.
For his part, Lithuania’s Chief of Defence General Raimundas Vaikšnoras has said he would support the country’s withdrawal from the treaty because it would free up the armed forces’ hands.
In December, Laurynas Kasčiūnas, the then defence minister, said he would initiate a discussion on the country’s withdrawal from the Ottawa Treaty, as such a discussion was already taking place in Finland.
Kasčiūnas said at the time that military advice had been given on the issue, showing that Lithuania needed such a capability.
On Monday, Kasčiūnas vowed to collect citizens’ signatures for the Seimas to consider the issue if the Defence Ministry fails to take initiative on it before the start of the Seimas spring session.
The withdrawal from the convention requires a presidential motion and the support of at least 86 MPs.
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