President Pellegrini: Slovakia Must Form Part of Drone Wall

       Tallinn, 10 October (TASR-correspondent) - Slovakia must be part of the drone wall, said President Peter Pellegrini on Friday at the Arraiolos Group summit of heads of state in Tallinn, Estonia, adding that no country of the eastern flank can be left out of the project.
        "Slovakia must be part of this project. The eastern flank must be protected as a whole, there can't be any gap or hole," said the president, pointing out that Ukraine's knowledge and experience could be used for this purpose.
        "It seems that instead of expensive and extremely inaccessible technical equipment, we could use the quite affordable solutions of Ukrainian manufacturers of these systems, which could help at least in detecting the possible passage of drones on our territory. Then, of course, the second part is destroying or shooting down such a drone," said the Slovak head of state, adding that he'd also like to discuss this issue with the partners.
        "There should be consensus among all of us that the eastern border must be protected as a whole, without leaving any countries out of it," stressed Pellegrini.
        Hosted by Estonian President Alar Karis, the meeting on Friday was also attended by the presidents of Austria (Alexander Van der Bellen), Bulgaria (Rumen Radev), Germany (Frank-Walter Steinmeier), Greece (Konstantinos Tasoulas), Italy (Sergio Mattarella), Latvia (Edgars Rinkevics), Poland (Karol Nawrocki), Portugal (Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa) and Slovenia (Natasa Pirc Musar).
        The Arraiolos Group is an informal political forum of the presidents of some EU-member countries. It takes its name from the Portuguese town of Arraiolos, where the first meeting took place in 2003. Slovakia was represented for the first time at a meeting of the group by former president Zuzana Caputova in 2022, while Pellegrini is representing Slovakia for the second time.