US discusses NATO's future with Baltic states through other channels too, says Kulbergs

Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs addressed on Thursday, at a press conference, reports that Latvia was not invited to an upcoming meeting in Poland dedicated to discussing NATO's future. He explained that the United States is Latvia's ally, and that discussions about Europe taking on greater responsibility for the alliance's conventional capabilities are taking place through multiple formats.

According to Kulbergs, the publicly known meeting is just one of these formats - the US discusses these matters with the Baltic states through other channels as well, which are not made public. At the same time, the prime minister stressed that Latvia's position on the matter remains unchanged: NATO is a single alliance, so all allies must be informed of the outcomes of any negotiations, not only those taking part in a particular meeting format.

Background

Earlier, Delfi reported that neither Lithuania nor the other Baltic states had been invited to the meeting planned to discuss NATO's future. On Thursday, Politico reported that the US Department of Defense (the Pentagon) had also not invited the United Kingdom and France to the gathering planned in Poland.

According to six diplomats familiar with preparations for the meeting, the gathering in Poland, organized by US Deputy Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby, is effectively set to become a working group for discussing NATO's future.