NATO to continue policing Baltic airspace until 2018

Feb 8, 2012, 16:34 GMT

Brussels - NATO countries have agreed to continue policing the airspace of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania until 2018, diplomats said Wednesday.

NATO has been carrying out the task since 2004 when the three Baltic states - which do not have the resources to guard their own airspace - joined the military alliance.

Baltic airspace policing is politically sensitive, because it takes NATO jets close to the borders with Russia.

In a statement, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Wednesday's decision was a demonstration of 'the alliance's commitment to collective defence and solidarity for all its members.'

It also 'exemplifies the kind of cooperation among allies that will become increasingly important in the future, as we reconcile our security requirements with budgetary realities,' he added.

Under the arrangement, fourteen countries are taking turns to police the Baltic airspace.

They are: Belgium, Denmark, Britain, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, Poland, Turkey, Spain, Romania, the Czech Republic, Portugal and France.

With most NATO members under pressure to slash defence budgets as part of efforts to reign in public debt levels, Rasmussen is pushing them to pool and share remaining military resources in order to make them stretch further.

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