Estonia and Latvia commemorated the 30th anniversary of the withdrawal of Russian troops from the two Baltic states with various events on Saturday. In the Estonian capital Tallinn, President Alar Karis, and in the Latvian capital Riga his Latvian counterpart Edgars Rinkēvičs highlighted the symbolic, political and legal significance of the events three decades ago. Both heads of state emphasized that without the troop withdrawal, neither genuine independence nor the path to the 2004 accession to the European Union and NATO defence alliance would have been possible. They made these remarks dur…