2019-04-04 18:20 update: 2019-04-05, 11:33
Photo PAP/Piotr Nowak
Inaugurating a meeting of Bucharest Nine defence ministers at the Warsaw Citadel on Thursday, the Polish MoD said that "NATO's eastern flank countries were especially affected by 20th-century history."
"We experienced the tragedy of totalitarianism, we were deprived of freedom," Mariusz Błaszczak said, stressing that "historical experience unites."
"The fact that we have met today in this group shows that historical experience has a unifying influence," the official said, declaring that "NATO's eastern flank countries are always ready to offer assistance to our allies."
The Bucharest Nine countries comprise Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Poland.
"NATO's 70th jubilee and the 20th and 15th anniversaries of our membership of the alliance show that cooperation is important. Acting together has sense. Unity as well as political and military cooperation will help defend ourselves against threats," Błaszczak underlined.
"Over these years, from being new NATO members we have become states, without whom the alliance is unimaginable, we create NATO," the official emphasised. (PAP)
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