Linas Antanas Linkevičius

Linas Linkevičius
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Incumbent
Assumed office 13 December 2012
Prime Minister	Algirdas Butkevičius
Preceded by	Audronius Ažubalis
Minister of National Defence
In office 26 October 2000 – 14 December 2004
Prime Minister	Rolandas Paksas Eugenijus Gentvilas (Acting) Algirdas Brazauskas
Preceded by	Česlovas Stankevičius
Succeeded by	Gediminas Kirkilas
In office 28 October 1993 – 27 November 1996
Prime Minister	Adolfas Šleževičius Laurynas Stankevičius
Preceded by	Audrius Butkevičius
Succeeded by	Česlovas Stankevičius
Personal details
Born	(1961-01-06) 6 January 1961 Vilnius, Soviet Union (now Lithuania)
Political party	Social Democratic Party
Alma mater	Kaunas University of Technology

Linas Antanas Linkevičius (born 6 January 1961) is a Lithuanian politician of the Social Democratic Party.

Political career

Linkevičius served as minister of National Defence from 1993 to 1996 and from 2000 to 2004. He was the Lithuanian Permanent Representative to NATO from 2005 until 2011. In December 2012 he was appointed minister of Foreign Affairs.

Foreign Minister

Views on Russia

Linkevičius has been a constant opponent within the European Union and NATO of compromises with Russia over Ukraine. When measures to re-engage Russia were discussed in Brussels, in January 2015, he strongly objected. "I do not think we should think how to re-engage; Russia should think how to re-engage . . . I see no reason why we should invent something," he was quoted. (Financial Times, January 20, 2015)

"We can't trust a single word of the Russian leadership. [Russia's] statements are worthless," he was quoted as saying in a public speech in March 2015, scolding some of his European Union colleagues for being detached from "reality" in seeking to soften or unroll some of the sanctions against Russia. (Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2015)

In a newspaper column, in June 2015, Linkevičius warned Lithuania's NATO partners against regression to a mid-Cold War-like détente with Russia, as the one experienced in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Russia, he wrote, no longer poses "a serious alternative to Western liberal democracy", and its adversarial relations with the rest of Europe are "just a Kremlin construct, invented by modern Russia to cover failures of reform."(Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2015)

Referring to Lithuania as a "frontline state" with Russia, he urged in that column that "NATO’s capabilities should be based on sober threat analyses, not illusions. Anything that the Kremlin perceives as weakness will encourage it to press ahead."

External links

• Short biography

Political offices
Preceded by Audrius Butkevičius	Minister of National Defence 1993–1996	Succeeded by Česlovas Stankevičius
Preceded by Česlovas Stankevičius	Minister of National Defence 2000–2004	Succeeded by Gediminas Kirkilas
Preceded by Audronius Ažubalis	Minister of Foreign Affairs 2012–present	Incumbent