VILNIUS, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Lithuania is ready to pay the cost to set up a permanent US military base if Washington should agree to establish one there, Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius said on Tuesday.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump said he would consider Lithuania's request for a permanent base: "They are friends of mine, they are great people, so we will certainly look at it."
Lithuania, a member of the EU and NATO, borders Russia and Moscow's close ally Belarus. The United States has kept an armoured battalion of almost 1,000 troops there since 2019, in overlapping rotations, meaning the troops arrive and leave every few months.
Sinkevicius said he proposed turning this into a permanent presence at a meeting with Trump's envoy John Coale last month in Vilnius.
"I'm glad that this idea is being taken seriously... This is a critically important guarantee of deterrence and security," Sinkevicius wrote on Facebook.
"Our partners only need to make the political decision to permanently station troops, and Lithuania is ready to cover the costs involved."
(Reporting by Andrius Sytas in VilniusEditing by Peter Graff)
