Estonia, Vanuatu Tie Diplomatic Knot
The Foreign Ministry has officially established bilateral diplomatic relations with Vanuatu.
The meeting between the Estonian and Vanuatu foreign ministers, Urmas Paet and Edward Natapei, took place in between events at the UN General Assembly in New York.
The two discussed cooperation in the UN and supporting one anothers' candidacies in international organizations, as well as Estonia's "Let's Do It!" civic clean-up initiative, Internet freedom and e-solutions.
"Various e-solutions such as e-education, e-elections and e-medicine help intensify state and citizen relations, especially in the case of long distances, and bring services to people," said Paet. "We are willing to share in the course of bilateral or multilateral cooperation our experience with implementing e-solutions," he said.
Located in the South Pacific, Vanuatu consists of 83 islands, with a territory spanning over 1,000 kilometers. The country has a population of 260,000 and was visited by 321,000 tourists last year. Estonian citizens can visit Vanuatu for 30 days without visa.
Estonia has yet to start official bilateral ties with 14 countries. Notable omissions among the relatively stable contingent include Bhutan, Swaziland, Togo and Tonga, and a handful of other Polynesian and Micronesian island states.