Foreign Minister interacts with Lithuanian delegation
Ghana has courted support from Lithuania to back the candidature of Professor Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, The Netherlands.
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The government has nominated her as its candidate for the List A category of judges for election to the court.
Bilateral support
Towards that objective, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, has asked the visiting Lithuanian Foreign Minister, Mr Linas Linkevicius, to support Ghana’s nominee to the court in the spirit of cooperation.
She further called for Lithuanian support for Ghana as it sought to be on the United Nations Security Council from 2020-2021.
Ms Botchwey held talks with a Lithuanian delegation, led by Mr Linkevicius, in Accra last Friday to, among other things, re-establish strong ties between the two countries.
The visit by the delegation was also to establish a strong presence in Africa, with Ghana being the central focus for Lithuanian investors in West Africa.
The delegation was in the country for three days.
Ms Botchwey said the visit by her Lithuanian counterpart was a follow-up to ongoing consultations between the two countries.
She described Lithuania as a country with one of the best ICT infrastructure in the world and also best in the area of manufacturing and called for collaboration with Lithuania in Ghana’s quest to become an ICT hub in the sub-region.
The visit to Ghana by Mr Linkevicius, the first in 20 years by a high-profile government official from Lithuania, according to Ms Botchwey, was crucial to Ghana in view of the government’s commitment to attract foreign direct investment.
She asked the delegation to consider Ghana as a key partner in the areas of manufacturing, ICT, renewable energy and fertiliser development where Lithuania had competitive advantage.
She mentioned the government’s flagship programmes, including the one-district, one-factory, one-village, one-dam and the Planting for Food and Jobs programmes, and called for a government-to-government relationship towards the successful implementation of the projects.
More consultations
For his part, Mr Linkevicius, who came to Ghana after visiting Lithuanian troops on a training mission in Mali, underscored the need for more consultations between Ghana and Lithuania.
“Our governments have to look beyond military cooperation and find areas of common interest. We can also collaborate in the area of cyber security,” he added.
Among other things, he suggested to the minister for Ghana to take advantage of educational opportunities in Lithuania to have Ghanaian students study there.
About Lithuania
Lithuania is a country of three million people in the Baltic Region of north-eastern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic States and situated along the south-eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, to the east of Sweden and Denmark.
It is a member of the European Union (EU), the Council of Europe, the Eurozone, the Schengen Agreement and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).