{"id":46981,"date":"2014-09-01T17:10:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T17:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=a6fe5f0a58cdf141e7c66cd53f74594c"},"modified":"2014-09-01T17:10:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-01T17:10:00","slug":"news-story-raf-pass-on-baltic-air-policing-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=46981","title":{"rendered":"News story: RAF passes on Baltic air policing role"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>The Royal Air Force\u2019s No 135 Expeditionary Air Wing has formally handed over the role of supporting nation in the Baltic air policing (<abbr title=\"Baltic air policing\">BAP<\/abbr>) mission to the Royal Canadian Air Force. <\/p>\n<p>The handover ceremony marked the conclusion of the 4-month deployment of 4 <abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr> Typhoon fighter aircraft that have been providing reassurance to the UK\u2019s allies in the region. <\/p>\n<p>Over the past 10 years the <abbr title=\"Baltic air policing\">BAP<\/abbr> mission has seen NATO allies deploy air defence aircraft to secure NATO\u2019s airspace over the Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the role of lead nation was handed over from the Polish Air Force to the Portuguese Air Force.<\/p>\n<p>The British Ambassador to Lithuania, His Excellency David Hunt, said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The deployment of the <abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr> Typhoons has been seen as an act of solidarity during a period of genuine insecurity in Lithuania\u2019s eastern neighbourhood.<\/p>\n<p>Our bilateral relationship is already close but the <abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr>\u2019s augmentation of <abbr title=\"Baltic air policing\">BAP<\/abbr> has added another dimension to our growing defence co-operation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">The <abbr title=\"Royal Air Force\">RAF<\/abbr> has enhanced the UK\u2019s reputation over the last 4 months and I am very grateful for everything they have done.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The handover marks the conclusion of a 4-month NATO deployment to secure NATO&#8217;s airspace over Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46981"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47004,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46981\/revisions\/47004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}