Lithuanian MP describes Lukashenka's outburst against Vilnius as «blather»

14.11.2012 / 13:34 / English Просмотры: 1930 Обсудить

Alyaksandr Lukashenka's remarks about a recent Molotov cocktail attack on the Lithuanian embassy in Minsk were just "blather," and its quality was poor, Emanuelis Zingeris, chairman of the Lithuanian parliament's foreign affairs committee, told the Belarus Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis and Mr. Zingeris earlier described the attack as a terrorist act.

"Even to us the reaction [of Mr. Lukashenka] to our right to express concern about the possible threat to the health and life of our people living on the embassy's grounds came as a surprise," Mr. Zingeris said.

As Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius put it, the jargon employed by Mr. Lukashenka shows him to be a person of little culture, he said.

"If a person wants to relax, it's up to him how he does it," Mr. Zingeris said. "However, things get worse if this person calls himself president."

Mr. Zingeris pointed out that he and Mr. Azubalis had not accused the Belarusian authorities of masterminding the attack.

Lithuania expects the incident to be investigated promptly and does not even contemplate the possibility of negligence on the part of investigators, Mr. Zingeris stressed.

He noted that a number of officers were inside the embassy at the time of the attack, and that there were cars parked in the embassy's compound. He linked the attack to the "misanthropic Communist ideology," noting that it had come on the eve of the anniversary of the October Revolution (Bolsheviks' coup d'etat in Russia in 1917).

Two unknown people hurled two bottles containing a flammable substance into the Lithuanian embassy's compound and fled the scene late on November 6. No people were hurt in the attack.

Mr. Lukashenka said that the Russian embassy had been targeted by a similar attack in August 2010.

He said that the perpetrators of the attack on the Russian embassy had been found and convicted. "Lithuania shouted loudly that they are political prisoners," Mr. Lukashenka said. "And now that these bottles were thrown at their embassy, they describe it as terrorism. This is their policy, this is not even double standards, this is just a mean policy," he told students and faculty at Belarusian State Economic University in Minsk.

Mr. Lukashenka said that Vilnius was still waiting for him to react to the incident. "And I'm waiting to hear what they will say about letting a Swedish plane cross their territory and enter the Belarusian airspace," he said, referring to July's incident where an aircraft piloted by Swedish citizens invaded Belarus' airspace and dropped parachute-wearing teddy bears on its territory in a pro-democracy stunt. //BelaPAN