Denmark taking over Baltic air policing

Danish Air Force F-16 (Photo by Antanas Gedrimas, courtesy Ministry of  National Defence, Lithuania)

Four Danish F-16 fighter jets landed in the Lithuanian First Air Base in Zokniai, where the mission is based, on Wednesday. Their mission will last four months, the Lithuanian Ministry of Defence said.

The Danish air contingent will replace the outgoing rotation of the French Air Force contingent that guarded the Baltic air space with Mirage 2000C jets since April. Before France the mission was performed by Germany with F-4F Phantoms.

Denmark will be guarding the Baltic air space for the third time following missions in 2004 and 2010.

NATO allies have been taking turns to police the air space of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania since 2004, when the three Baltic countries joined NATO. Since then the mission has been performed by the air forces of Belgium, Denmark, Britain, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, Poland, Turkey, Spain, Romania, the Czech Republic, Portugal and France.

Last year NATO decided to extend the air policing mission until the end of 2014. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which do not have air policing assets of their own, want the mission to be extended at least to 2018 and for air policing to get the status of a permanent NATO mission.