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2013 08 01

Foreign minister cries provocation after recordings of alleged conversations between Lithuanian diplomats leak online

Records of Lithuanian diplomats' alleged phone conversations, leaked online, are informational provocation, says Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius, adding that his ministry is carrying out an investigation into the incident.
Užsienio reikalų ministerija
Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Šarūno Mažeikos/BFL nuotr.

"On Wednesday, I asked the Inspectorate General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to investigate this incident, and I can only express my regret that there's been a rise in information provocations recently, therefore, we need to thoroughly investigate all this. These things that are being spread have nothing to do with the state's official position," Linkevičius told BNS on Thursday.

"We can expect that (information attacks), we have talked about that many times, we know that it is happening. We can only regret the fact that it is happening. But we cannot ignore all this, we need to investigate all this," Linkevičius added.

Records were uploaded to youtube.com on July 8, in one of which, two Lithuanian diplomats are said to be involved in a conversation. It is presumed that one of the diplomats is Zenonas Kumetaitis, deputy director of the Foreign Ministry's Eastern Neighborhood Policy Department, and the other one is Renatas Juška, Lithuania's Ambassador to Hungary.

It is said tat the diplomats' conversation took place at 12:50 PM on April 4.

The men in the recording are having an informal conversation about Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius' visit to Saint Petersburg, Russia, peculiarities of communication between the minister and vice-ministers, sharing remarks on Azerbaijan-Armenia relations, personal opinions on the conflict between the two countries, Azerbaijani and Armenians' active participation in the resolution of issues related to them at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as the establishment of a group of friendship with Nagorno-Karabakh in the Lithuanian Seimas.

"I am supportive of those who lead Armenians. They are also Christians and Stalin regime made them suffer. Their territories were also reshaped just the way it was with us. And I support them. In a very passive way but..." the man, named as Juška, said.

"And from the religious or just common human point of view, Armenia seems closer, though they are also the rotten ones. So it depends. For me it's the most important thing that all of them stay aboard in the wake of the summit," his interlocutor said.

"There were some weeks when that Armenian and that Azeri man used to come to us to sort out which side we are supportive of, Armenian or Azerbaijani one," he also said.

The above-mentioned conversation was also covered by the Azeri media. The Lithuanian Embassy told news website 1 news.az that they do not comment on untrustworthy information and stressed the provocative nature of the incident.

On July 8, a conversation on Turkmenistan was uploaded to youtube.com. The record was alleged to have been made on April 18.

Two men are having a conversation, one of them is said to be Lithuanian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Artūras Zurauskas and the other one is asking the ambassador about his links to Turkmenistan, presents invitation to invest in the country.

All records are subtitled in English.

VIDEO: Conversation between Lithuanian diplomats

 

VIDEO: Conversation between Lithuanian diplomats 2

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