RIGA, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Russia and Belarus have invited three Latvian representatives to observe their joint military exercise Zapad in September this year, the Latvian Foreign Ministry informed on Wednesday.
The invitations extended to Latvia include two issued by Belarus under the Vienna Document of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and one from Russia that has been presented to the Latvian defense attache in Moscow.
Russia's decision to invite the Latvian attache to the Zapad maneuvers has to be taken as a positive gesture, representatives of the Latvian Foreign Ministry said, adding that international pro-transparency mechanisms like the OSCE Vienna Document "enable countries to obtain objective information about military activities and exercises and thus avoid misunderstandings and unnecessary tensions".
Janis Garisons, State Secretary of the Latvian Defense Ministry, has already confirmed that representatives from Latvia would be participating in the observation of the Zapad 2017 exercise.
Zapad 2017, a joint strategic exercise of the Russian and Belarusian armed forces, is scheduled to take place from Sept. 14 to 20.
