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NATO marks 75th anniversary in ceremony also celebrating Romania's accession
NATO is marking the 75th anniversary of its founding on Thursday, on the second day of a meeting of foreign ministers from member countries, at a ceremony at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels, which will also mark the 25th, 20th and 15th anniversaries of the accession of no fewer than 12 countries, including Romania.
The ceremony will take place at the NATO headquarters on Thursday morning and will be preceded by a wreath-laying ceremony attended by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the Head of the Military Committee, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer. During the ceremony, the NATO anthem will be performed and speeches will be given by Jens Stoltenberg and Rob Bauer, as well as the foreign ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania and Croatia.
According to the programme of the ceremony made public by NATO, a cake will be cut on this occasion by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the Foreign Minister of Belgium, the host country, Hadja Lahbib.
Romania was invited to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization at the NATO summit in Prague in November 2002 together with Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia. On 29 March 2004, Romania officially joined NATO by depositing the instruments of ratification with the US Department of State, the depositary state of the North Atlantic Alliance Treaty. The deposit of the instruments of ratification was followed, on 2 April 2004, by the official hoisting of the Romanian flag at the NATO headquarters.
NATO is also marking the 25th anniversary of the accession of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1999 and the 15th anniversary of Albania and Croatia joining the Alliance in 2009.
On Wednesday and Thursday, NATO foreign ministers will meet in Brussels to discuss continued support for Ukraine in the context of Russia's war. On the second day of the meeting there will be a NATO-Ukraine Council meeting at foreign ministers level, which will be preceded by a joint press statement by Jens Stoltenberg and Dmitro Kuleba.
Also on the second day of the meeting, the North Atlantic Council will meet with representatives of partner states from the Indo-Pacific region - Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea - as well as EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell.
According to South Korea's Yonhap news agency, South Korea was invited to this ministerial meeting for the third year in a row as a partner in the Indo-Pacific region.
The meeting "is expected to serve as an opportunity to further strengthen the partnership with NATO (...) and to discuss ways to respond to cross-border security threats," the Seoul Foreign Ministry said in a release.