Warsaw, 2 December 1996 (RFE/RL) -- Lithuania's Defense Minister is due today to begin a two-day visit to Poland to discuss mutual security and cooperation issues.
Linas Linkevicius is scheduled to meet his Polish counterpart, Stanislaw Dobrzanski, for talks on security arrangements in the Baltics and Central Europe. According to the Defense Ministry in Warsaw, the two ministers will also exchange information on their experiences in NATO's Partnership for Peace program and on Polish and Lithuanian troops serving under NATO command in Bosnia.
Poland and Lithuania are due next year to form a joint motorized infantry battalion for a U.N. peace mission. There are 20 other mutual defense projects scheduled for 1997.
Linkevicius is also expected to hold talks with deputy prime minister Miroslaw Pietrewicz and deputy foreign minister Andrzej Towpik.