Ukraine in Arabic | Ukrainian and Lithuanian presidents to meet in Kiev
KYIV/Ukraine in Arabic/ Today, on November 24, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite is a one-day visit to Kyiv as part of which she attended the seventh meeting of the council of presidents of Ukraine and Lithuania.
"Negotiations between the presidents of Lithuania are going on. Poroshenko and Grybauskaite will chair the seventh session of the Council of Presidents," the Ukrainian president's spokesman Sviatoslav Tseholko said on Twitter.
The Ukrainian presidential press service earlier announced that the two presidents were scheduled to meet on Monday morning and the meeting would be followed by a meeting of the Council of Presidents and the ceremony in which Ukrainian-Lithuanian documents would be signed.
Poroshenko and Grybauskaite are also expected to meet with the media near the Ukrainian presidential administration.
Following the meeting, Ukraine and Lithuania have signed a road map for the development of strategic partnership for 2015-2016.
The document was signed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite. The signing ceremony took place in the House with Chimeras.
President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite noted that she supports the idea of the EU providing military assistance to Ukraine.
"I think that there should be a lot of initiatives [regarding EU assistance] today, especially when it comes to military assistance to Ukraine," Grybauskaite said, saying that such assistance should come in both economic and financial forms.
Grybauskaite also said that not all of the aid would come in the form of money.
"Sometimes a flow of money may be poorly channelled, or corrupt, and thus useless. And that is the problem with Ukraine. We are ready to help, but until Ukraine eliminates corruption in state governance, any amount provided will be in vain,” Grybauskaite said.
"This issue will also be discussed by your leaders," she added.
"The absolutely corrupt state apparatus, as well as the legal system, represent the weakest link, effectively used by Kremlin for its own purposes. This raises a lot of doubts in [the minds of] EU donors,” said Grybauskaite.
Despite the fact that the daily life in Ukraine is plagued by war, the implementation of reforms cannot however be postponed, she said.
"All this has to be done at the same time," Grybauskaite said.
