The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine strengthens cooperation with the Republic of Lithuania in the field of border protection — Mary Akopian
Today, December 1, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Mary Akopian discussed the strategic partnership with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Lithuania to Ukraine Valdemaras Sarapinas.
The parties discussed the issue of the migration crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border and ways to resolve the situation in case of aggravation.
“I am confident that the interaction between the border authorities of Ukraine and Lithuania in bilateral and multilateral formats will have a significant impact on the security situation at the borders,” said Mary Akopyan.
Lithuania was the first to face an artificially created crisis on its borders, so the ambassador thanked him for providing humanitarian assistance in August — barbed wire along the 100 km border. He assured that Lithuania, as an EU member state, will contribute in every possible way in providing the European Commission with additional financial and material and technical support to Ukraine in the issue of the arrangement of the intellectual border.
In order to coordinate actions to effectively confront hybrid challenges, Deputy Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Mary Akopian invited the Lithuanian side to support the initiative on the meeting of foreign and internal affairs ministers on the Lublin Triangle platform.
During the meeting, the parties also discussed the prospects of Ukrainian-Lithuanian police cooperation on the regulation of joint actions in the fight against illegal migration, organized crime, in particular, the movement of weapons, explosives and drugs.
Separately, they focused on the issue of cybersecurity, training of specialists in this field, as well as strengthening cooperation with the competent authorities of Lithuania in order to introduce international experience into the activities of the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.
“Another result of the partnership between the two countries should be the signing of an intergovernmental agreement on mutual recognition and exchange of driver's licenses. The day before, we discussed this intention with colleagues of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Lithuania. Currently, experts are working on a draft of a future agreement. I hope that in the near future the drivers of Ukraine and Lithuania will be able to positively evaluate our work,” said Mary Akopyan.
The Deputy Minister stressed that the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine highly appreciates the partnership with the Republic of Lithuania.
“I am confident that our cooperation to protect the national interests of both states, strengthen security and effectively counter transnational crime will have a lasting positive result,” said Mary Akopian.
Department of Communications of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine
PHOTO by Oleg Suprun
