If Lithuania or Poland requests invoking NATO's Article 4, Latvia will support it - Rinkevics

  • 2021-11-22
  • LETA/TBT Staff

RIGA - If Lithuania or Poland asks to invoke NATO's Article 4, Latvia will support the request, Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics (New Unity) told LETA. 

The minister said that if the situation on the European Union's (EU) external border escalates, requesting consultations under NATO's Article 4 will be considered again. 

"At the moment, the situation has not changed so radically as to cause us to raise the issue at the beginning of this week. We are ready for that. We are in close coordination with our Polish and Lithuanian colleagues. The countries are unanimous on how to act," Rinkevics said. 

Article 4 calls for consultation over military matters when "the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened."

As reported, the regime of Belarus' dictator Alexander Lukashenko has been attempting to send thousands of illegal migrants, mostly from Iraq, into Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in recent months. 

The West accuses Belarus of engineering the border crisis as a revenge for sanctions slapped on Lukashenko's regime after its brutal suppression of protests against his rule.

The migrants say they want to get to Germany via Poland and Lukashenko has said that he is ready to send them there by plane if necessary.