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NATO Force Integration Unit opened in Vilnius

Xinhua, September 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday opened the NATO Force Integration Unit (NFIU) here, underscoring the importance of this step in moving towards "greater solidarity, greater strength, and greater readiness".

The new NFIU will comprise roughly 40 military personnel, half of whom will be provided by other allied nations. The international staff will be made up of representatives from more than 10 NATO member states, according to Lithuania's defense ministry.

The Lithuanian NFIU is one of six small new headquarters set up this month in Lithuania, as well as in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Romania.

According to the NATO Secretary General, the new headquarters "will ensure that, should our forces need to move, they can move quickly and effectively" to threats.

Juozas Olekas, Lithuania's minister of national defense, stressed it was one of the most significant steps in terms of strengthening NATO collective defense taken in several decades.

"The establishment of a NATO headquarters in Lithuania and six other allied nations testifies that NATO is taking all necessary steps to provide security to its member states," said Olekas at the NFIU inauguration ceremony.

Set up in response to new security challenges, the NFIUs are small headquarters and not military bases.

The key mission of the NFIU is to prepare for, and facilitate if needed, the rapid deployment of the NATO Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, which would deploy to the conflict area within 48 hours, the minister of defense explained.

The NFIUs will also support collective defense planning and help coordinate training and exercises.

The establishment of these six NFIUs was agreed at the Wales Summit in 2014. All of them are planned to reach full operational capability ahead of the NATO summit in Warsaw in 2016, according to the defense ministry. Endit