According to Ažubalis, such a reaction only showed to the authors of the act of provocation that Lithuania easily succumbs to manipulation. He and several other opposition politicians also called for holding an extraordinary sitting of the parliamentary Committee of Foreign Affairs.
"The ruling parties that made the decision bear a full responsibility for dangerous consequences of such a precedent," Ažubalis said in a statement.
In his words, this case shows that the fate of career diplomats is decided "based on information collected, falsified and illegally published by foreign countries with hostile motives."
"Representatives of the government legitimized the intervention of third countries into Lithuania's internal matters and the external control of our key state services. The current reaction to the published recordings has shown to the authors of the act of provocation that Lithuania can be easily manipulated, because by bowing to pressure we become a lot more vulnerable," Ažubalis said.
On Wednesday, the Government of Lithuania decided to propose to President Dalia Grybauskaitė to recall the country's ambassadors to Hungary and Azerbaijan who came under the prime minister's criticism after recordings of their phone conversations were leaked online.
Under the proposal, Ambassador to Hungary Renatas Juška and Ambassador to Azerbaijan Artūras Žurauskas should be recalled as of September 30.
Juška and Žurauskas came under fire after secret recordings of their phone conversations were published on YouTube. In the conversations, the ambassadors exchange their personal views on the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the internal situation in Turkmenistan and share biting remarks about state leaders.
After the leak, Ambassador to Azerbaijan Žurauskas handed in his resignation.
Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius said following a meeting with the president last week that the ambassadors had lost his trust and added that he focused "on moral things that are set out for diplomats."
The parliamentary Committee of Foreign Affairs, which only has advisory powers, has spoken out against the ambassadors' recall.
Ažubalis believes that "by one-sidedly initiating their recall", the government "breached the 23-year-old tradition of cooperation with the Seimas Committee on Foreign Affairs."
Conservative MPs Ažubalis and Emanuelis Zingeris as well as Liberal MP Petras Auštrevičius have handed in a letter to Social Democratic Chairman of the Seimas Committee on Foreign Affairs, Benediktas Juodka, asking him to call an extraordinary committee sitting.
