Slovak National Party (SNS) vice-chairman Jaroslav Paška said on Thursday (14 March) that he expects Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini (Smer-SD) to reject the Foreign Affairs Ministry's plans to continue in negotiations over a defence co-operation agreement with the US. The agreement is said to include 105 million euro in assistance for the upgrade of military airbases in Sliač and Kuchyňa. The prime minister is scheduled to meet on Friday with Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák (a Smer-SD nominee) and Defence Minister Peter Gajdoš (SNS) to discuss the matter. Paška also wants information contained in the current draft of the agreement to be published, something he claims Lajčák is refusing to do as the final version has not yet been concluded. Paška added that unless these demands are met, the Slovak National Party leadership will convene in order to seeks solutions to the situation and decide what next steps to take.
Controversy over the agreement began last week when the Slovak Defence Ministry announced it would no longer participate in negotiations over the aid, saying that the offer did not reflect the operational requests of the Slovak Armed Forces. The move took the Slovak Foreign Ministry by surprise, who responded by stating that the negotiations had not yet been concluded and the talks with the US were ongoing. President Andrej Kiska and several opposition and coalition MPs also criticised the move. Leaders of the Slovak National Party, however, including Parliamentary Chair Andrej Danko, claimed that the US financial assistance would open the door to the possibility of a US military base and US troops being positioned on Slovak territory. This was denied by Foreign Minister Lajčák and Prime Minister Pelligrini. On Monday, the US ambassador to Slovakia, Adam Sterling, also denied that the US has any interest in building a military base or having its troops in Slovakia. He said this in a short video posted on Facebook, where he mentioned, among other things, that the United States has similar defence cooperation agreements with several NATO member countries, and that, in this way, the US wants to help its allies to develop their defence infrastructure.
Also on Thursday, echoing earlier statements by Andrej Danko, Defense Minister Gajdoš claimed that no funding had been rejected as none had been offered, adding that negotiations over the co-operation agreement need to be completed first and that these talks are the job of the foreign affairs ministry. He also claimed that the foreign ministry hasn't accepted his ministry's comments, and so the latter won't take part in the talks until its remarks are taken into account. In related news, Defence Minister Gajdoš (Slovak National Party/SNS) met with British Ambassador to Slovakia Andrew John Garth on Thursday, with Gajdoš praising the existing bilateral defence co-operation between the two countries and welcoming their joint activities in education and training.
