RIGA, July 02. /ITAR-TASS/. Officials of Latvia, Estonia, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Britain, and Germany have signed a memorandum on setting up NATO’s center for strategic communications in Riga, the capital of Latvia.

A report released by the press service of the Latvian Defense Ministry on Wednesday said the signing of the document took place Tuesday, July 1, at the headquarters of the so-called Allied Command Transformation (ACT) at Norfolk, Virginia.

Strategic communications play an important role in the achieving of NATO’s political and military objectives, Latvian Defense Minister Raimonds Vejonis said who made a working visit to NATO’s outlet in Norfolk.

To substantiate for his thesis on the importance of strategic communications, Vejonis said the ongoing conflict in Ukraine highlighted what role public awareness campaigns played in getting advantages in armed conflict these days.

At the end of 2012, Latvia made public its readiness to create an advanced NATO center that would supervise strategic communications, and the first conference on founding a center of the kind took place in October 2013.

A memorandum on setting it up was coordinated in the process of a conference that Latvia hosted in mid-April. It was attended by officials from NATO’s supreme allied command in Europe, as well as by representatives from a group of allied member-states including the US, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Britain, Norway, France, and Latvia proper.

Data available at the moment suggests the new center might be accredited before the end of this summer and Latvia would then be able to announce the news at a NATO summit due in Wales in September.