Your trusted source

Lithuanian Ambassador to Azerbaijan and Hungary, the recording of whose informal conversation about Armenia and Azerbaijan was found in internet, did not hurt the foreign policy of the country, did not do anything illegal, but, however, had lost the trust of the prime minister, Rimvydas Valatka the editor in chief of the Lithuanian portal “15min.lt”says.

"President believes that the conversation of the two ambassadors have been a provocation, so that the diplomats are victims.
However she still believes that the victims have acted unprofessionally. The Minister of Foreign Affairs offers to fire them, for the sake of their peace," the author writes.

According to him, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Security Department of Lithuania (SSD) did not try to find the criminals after the calls of diplomats were made public on YouTube. Instead, they were studying the behavior of the victims within a month, and were explaining "how bad these victims were."

Valatka is wondering what Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius was thinking, expressing his distrust about the ambassadors, while the investigation was still going on. The same question he addresses to Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius. "Linkevičius knows that he has the right to think only when the president orders him," the chief editor of the portal writes.

"He offers to fire the ambassadors to Hungary and Azerbaijan from their posts, but admits that they "had not committed any official misconduct and had not violated the law," but "the promulgated record of the conversation of ambassadors had not hurt Lithuania's foreign policy." Those who made these conversations public were well aware that the Presidency and the Government of Lithuania have long been without conscious," the author writes.

On the other hand, he writes, what if the records were not prepared by the foreign intelligence services, but the "pocket" SSD? "SSD did not even look for the one who had secretly recorded conversations of the diplomats. The saddest part of this scandal is that the SSD instead of looking for the criminals, was looking for the records, which contained nothing terrible besides a humor, which was unattainable for morbid ambition of our leaders," the journalist notes.

According to him, the enemies knew that the leaders of Lithuania will go that way. "If the president and the prime minister knew why the Heads of State and Government need advisers, the essence of this case could be seen through in 5 minutes. Any adviser would tell them if the United States would have done the same as Lithuania is promising to do after the WikiLeaks scandal, then the US would remain without its diplomats; so many things were written in the official reports that were made public," Rimvydas Valatka writes.

According to “15min.lt”, last month records of Lithuanian Ambassadors to Azerbaijan and Hungary were posted on YouTube, where, as stated, the diplomats talk with the diplomats and businessmen in Vilnius. They informally share personal observations about the relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia on the record, as well as the visit of Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius to Russia, etc.

After the publicity of these conversations in the network Ministry of Foreign Affairs received the resignation petition of Arturas Zhurauskas, the Lithuanian Ambassador to Azerbaijan. Linkevičius on Monday told reporters that the Foreign Ministry did not receive resignation of Ambassador to Hungary Renatas Yushki. Lithuanian officials called the publicity of these conversations in the network Information provocation.

Last week, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius reported that the leaders of the state had lost their confidence in the ambassadors and the latter can no longer hold the office.