Tomorrow, 23 July, will mark 70 years since the Welles Declaration, with which the United States of America publicly announced that it did not recognise Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as being incorporated into the composition of the Soviet Union.
Foreign Minister Urmas Paet stated that Estonia still remembers the USA’s concrete principles and the help that was given to help us restore our independence. “Over the decades, the non-recognition policy of the United States gave the people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania the hope and enthusiasm to believe in the restoration of independence and to act on the desire for freedom,” emphasised Foreign Minister Paet. “In addition to hope in Estonia, we should also keep in mind that Estonia was represented as a country in the United States throughout the entire occupation. I’m sure we all remember Ambassador Ernst Jaakson, the Estonian diplomat who handed the Estonian Consulate General in New York, which had functioned throughout the occupation years, to the newly independent Republic of Estonia in 1991,” said Paet.
Paet confirmed that, in remembering the non-recognition policy, Estonia is all the more pleased to continue its active allied relations with the USA.
After the Baltic states were occupied and staged parliamentary elections with forged results were held as a result of Soviet pressure, the acting US Secretary of State Sumner Welles declared on 23 July 1940 that the United States of America condemns the actions of the Soviet Union in deliberately annihilating the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
SPOKESPERSON' S OFFICE