Latvia urges EU to buy ammunition for Ukraine from non-EU countries

RIGA - Latvian Foreign Minister Krisjanis Karins (New Unity) at a meeting of the European Union's (EU) Foreign Affairs Council called for buying the ammunition that Ukraine needs from non-European Union countries to enable the delivery to Ukraine of the committed one million rounds of artillery ammunition.

Karins attend the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on Monday, with the ministers' discussions focusing on Russia's aggression against Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East.

The Latvian minister underlined that Ukraine needs an undivided support from like-minded democracies to be able to defend itself. 

"It is in our own interests! The European Union must take a decision as soon as possible on the Ukraine Facility under the European Peace Facility and the EU for Ukraine Fund to ensure further assistance to Ukraine,” Karins underlined at the meeting.

At the beginning of the Council, Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, joined the ministerial discussion online. He urged the upcoming extraordinary meeting of EU leaders, the European Council, to decide on EUR 50 billion in financial support as the best security guarantee for Ukraine, while calling for an understanding that the duration of the war waged by Russia was conditional on those decisions.

In an exchange of views on a solution to the conflict in the Middle East, Karins reiterated the importance of an active role by the EU in resolving the conflict in close cooperation with the countries of the region and international players. That would help prevent a wider escalation of the conflict and find ways to bring sustainable peace to the region through a two-state solution.

The council's agenda also included the EU foreign ministers' meeting with the foreign ministers of Israel, the Palestinian National Authority, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, as well as with the secretary-general of the League of Arab States.