Minister in talks at GLOBSEC

The commitments the Slovak delegation signed up to at the Thursday NATO meeting in Brussels are, according to the NATO Deputy Secretary General, Ms Rose Gottemoeller, “an excellent step ahead for Slovakia and an excellent step ahead for NATO”. DSG Gottemoeller conveyed this message in a meeting with SVK Minister of Defence Peter Gajdoš in the margins of GLOBSEC 2017. She appreciated Slovakia's interest in sending SVK soldiers to Iraq and a SVK unit's planned deployment to the Baltics as part of NATO's enhanced Forward Presence. Also in attendance at the meeting was the Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy. Defence expenditures were on the agenda too. Ms Gottemoeller appreciated the creation of the NFIU in Slovakia. Both officials also discussed NATO-EU cooperation. Finally, the Minister informed Ms Gottemoeller of the projects Slovakia has been pressing on with as part of several regional international groupings, as well as of the strategic documents the MOD is either drafting or taking part in.

At GLOBSEC 2017 on 26 May, Peter Gajdoš met with the State Minister for Defence Affairs of the United Arab Emirates, Mr Mohammed Al Bawardi. The main topics of discussion included fostering bilateral engagement in the field of security and defence, defence industry cooperation, and the fight against terrorism. The SVK Minister of Defence invited Al Fursan, the UAE Air Force Aerobatic Display Team, to the Slovak International Air Fest (SIAF) 2017 in August. “Also, I would be pleased if you could be represented at the IDEB Defence Fair in Bratislava next year,” he said, while recalling the February participation of the SVK Defence Industry in IDEX 2017 in Abu Dhabi.