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Duma outraged by Lithuanian president’s statement

In an interview with a local radiostation, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite called Russia a terrorist state
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite  EPA/STEPHANIE LECOCQ
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite
© EPA/STEPHANIE LECOCQ

MOSCOW, November 21. /TASS/. Communists in the Russian State Duma on Friday proposed to make a statement on sanctions and even cut off diplomatic relations with Lithuania in response to the Lithuanian president’s statement about Russia.

“In connection with yesterday’s unacceptable statement of the president of Lithuania, I propose that the committee for international affairs should prepare a statement and maybe a resolution to impose sanctions against Lithuania and maybe even cut off diplomatic relations,” Duma member Nikolay Kolomeitsev of the Commnist Party told a lower house meeting on Friday.

The legislator said it was unacceptable that the president of the country made such boorish and cynical remarks.

“On November 20, President Dalia Grybauskaite belched out a new set of rude verbal assaults on Russia in an interview with a local radio,” Russian Foreign Ministry official spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Thursday. “She went as far as to label Russia as a terrorist state in the context of Ukrainian events.”

“She also made an outright appeal to give military assistance to the incumbent Ukrainian regime, claiming that if Russia’s so-called aggression was not stopped then it could spread farther on into Europe,” Lukashevich said.

“President Grybauskaite’s claims exceed even the most extremist statements emanated by nationalist radicals in Kiev,” he said. “Her proclamations only impede the search for solutions to the Ukrainian crisis instead of facilitating it.”

“In contrast, soberly minded politicians who are not trying to win the likings of marginal forces and are really alarmed by the situation in Ukraine abide by a different, responsible approach,” Lukashevich said.