(30 Jun 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Manila – 30 June 2025
1. Lithuanian Minister for National Defence Dovilė Šakalienė (on left) and Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto C.Teodoro, Jr signing Memorandum of Understanding on Defense Cooperation
2. Various of signing
3. Various of Šakalienė and Teodoro holding up signed Memorandum of Understanding on Defense Cooperation
4. Šakalienė and Teodoro arriving for briefing
5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Dovilė Šakalienė, Lithuanian Minister for National Defence:
“What we see now is that authoritarian states are really cooperating very efficiently both supporting each other politically, financially, militarily and we see one of the worst results of their cooperation in Ukraine, where Russia working together with Iran with North Korea and with China is annihilating a free and independent country in the middle of Europe.”
6. Wide of Šakalienė and Teodoro on stage
7. SOUNDBITE: (English) Dovilė Šakalienė, Lithuanian Minister for National Defence:
“If they work together to threaten us then we must work together to defend ourselves and to send a very clear strategic message: we are not going to let ourselves to be scared, we are not going to let them enter our territory, we are not going to let them to change the current world order based on international rules. We are going to stand up to them together.”
8. Šakalienė and Teodoro shaking hands
STORYLINE:
The Philippines and Lithuania signed an agreement Monday to build a security alliance given their mutual alarm over growing aggression threatening their regions by countries such as China.
The memorandum of understanding signed in Manila by Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. and his Lithuanian counterpart, Dovilė Šakalienė, would foster defense cooperation particularly in cyber security, defense industries, munitions production, addressing threats and maritime security, the Department of National Defense in Manila said.
Šakalienė renewed Lithuania’s alarm over an emerging “authoritarian axis” of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran which she raised in an international defense forum in Singapore last month and said needed to be confronted by a unified response from pro-democracy countries.
North Korea has deployed forces to fight on the front lines in Ukraine, while China has provided economic and technological support to Russia while opposing international sanctions.
Iran has been a key supplier of attack drones to Russia for its war effort.
“What we see now is that authoritarian states are really cooperating very efficiently,” Šakalienė said in a news conference in Manila after her delegation held closed-door meetings with Teodoro and Philippine defense and military officials.
“One of the worst results is the cooperation on Ukraine.”
In Asia, Šakalienė cited China’s acts of aggression against Taiwan and Filipino fishermen in the disputed South China Sea, which Beijing has claimed virtually in its entirety.
The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have also been involved in the long-unresolved territorial standoffs but confrontations between Chinese and Philippine forces have particularly spiked in recent years.
The agreement with Lithuania, was part of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos’ effort to build an arc of security alliances in Asia and Western countries, aside from Manila’s treaty alliance with Washington, to boost the Southeast Asian country’s territorial defense amid China’s growing aggression in the South China Sea.
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