Biden: USA considers sending forces to Baltic region

2014-03-19
From wire reports, TALLINN

The USA is considering sending rotating U.S. forces to the Baltic region, as a step towards strengthening the collective defence of NATO allies against Russian aggression, Vice President of the United States of America Joe Biden said on Tuesday, reports Postimees Online.

Biden said that the forces can carry out land and sea exercises and participate in training missions. He said that the allies are also working in the name of strengthening the air policing mission in the Baltic states.

Biden, who had a meeting on Tuesday in Warsaw with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, said that rotating forces are one of many steps that the USA is considering in order to strengthen NATO.
Collective defence doesn’t just show NATO's will but also its ability to defend its allies from all dangers, Biden and Ilves confirmed.

The USA stands behind all NATO allies, said Biden. "Article 5 is irrevocable," he said.

"There is apparent need to find lasting and sustainable solutions that would considerably increase the presence of the USA and NATO in the Baltic region," said Ilves, pointing out the addition of U.S. planes to NATO air policing mission in the Baltic states on March 6 and the decision of the UK to allocate its Typhoon fighter planes to guarding the Baltic airspace starting the end of April, reports LETA.

It is time to revise the relations between the West and Russia, Ilves and Biden said, confirming that Russia's aggression in Ukraine and supporting the Crimean fake referendum inevitably bring about countersteps of NATO and the European Union.

They also considered continued and visible support of democratic states to reform aspirations in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia important as a way of easing the current security crisis.

Ilves added that international observers have to be sent to Eastern Ukraine quickly. "More generally, Ukraine needs the political and economic support of the European Union and NATO to become a democratic, united and economically successful state," said President Ilves.