On January 31 Chiefs of Defence (CHODs) of the Nordic and Baltic countries will meet at the Headquarters of the Lithuanian Navy in Klaipėda, Lithuania.
Chief of Defence of Lithuania Lieutenant General Arvydas Pocius, Chief of Defence of Denmark General Peter Bartram, Chief of Defence of Brigadier General Riho Terras, Chief of Defence of Latvia Lieutenant General Raimonds Graube, Chief of Defence of Norway General Harald Sunde, Chief of Defence of Finland General Ari Puheloinen and Head of the Plans and Policy Department of the Swedish Armed Forces Major General Dennis Gyllensporre will be present at the meeting.
The meeting Baltic and Nordic CHODs will address multinational military training events possibly to be held in the future in the Baltic Region, multinational operations, including the International Security Assistance Force's (ISAF) operation in Afghanistan (all the meeting CHODs represent contributing nations in the ISAF operation), and the countries' cooperation to the end of better employment of energy resources for military purposes and ensurement of secure energy supply in multinational operations. They will also share experience regarding the issues of social integration of veteran military personnel.
The Baltic and Nordic Chiefs of Defence meet annually in one of the represented countries on a rotational basis. Last year they met in the Baltic-Nordic CHODs format in Sweden. Last meeting hosted by Lithuania in this format took place in January 2007.
Lithuania commenced cooperation with the Nordic countries in 1994 when the first agreement on military cooperation with Denmark, a member of NATO, was signed. Since then a considerable number of Lithuanian military representatives have undergone studies in the Scandinavian countries. The Nordic countries support trilateral cooperation projects of the Baltic countries, servicemembers of Norway and Denmark have been deployed to conduct NATO's Air Policing mission in the Baltic States. After the re-establishment of the Lithuanian Armed Forces the Scandinavian countries assisted Lithuania in modernising weaponry and training troops and military units.
