The wider NATO alliance should continue to carry out air-policing duties over the Baltic countries for the foreseeable future, the defence ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania agreed at a meeting in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius on 7 May. Other NATO members have fulfilled the role since 2004, with Poland assuming control of the mission from France on 28 April. In August 2009, amid the realisation that the Baltic nations were nowhere near developing a satisfactory level of capability, NATO announced that it would extend the mandate of the mission by a further three years to run until the end of 2014. A further extension has long been considered highly likely; this has now apparently been confirmed, with Estonian Minister of Defence Jaak Aaviksoo saying after the Vilnius meeting that it would be in the interests of both NATO and the region for the Baltic countries to contribute in other fields of security.
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