President of Latvia: We don’t need a new NATO base

President of Latvia Andris Bērziņš has attended the annual military exercises Operation Summer Shield XII in Adazi, Latvia. In his speech, the president said there is no need in a new NATO base in the country.

“This one (the base in Adazi) is the military base of NATO, as Latvia is a member of the alliance. We do not need a new base. Here we have everything we need to conduct drills and develop cooperation so that the entire brigade could coordinate various activities,” he said.

Large-scale military exercise Operation Summer Shield XII, which will be attended by more than 1,100 soldiers from Latvia, Lithuania, the United States, Great Britain, Luxembourg and Canada are underway in Latvia, 22-31 March. This annual training event is a combined land, air and naval exercise. The goal for the maneuvers is to integrate and coordinate fire support in infantry unit operations through a number of combat support elements – artillery, aviation, defense against weapons of mass destruction, support of engineers in united operation with overcoming obstacles.

As EAD reported earlier, last week the leaderships of Latvia and Lithuania had a serious dispute over the relations with Russia. President of Latvia Andris Bērziņš said in public he disagrees with his Lithuanian counterpart Dalia Grybauskaitė who had repeatedly called Russia an aggressor-country.