According to the President's office, the Lithuanian president and McCain, a former presidential candidate, discussed Lithuanian-American bilateral relations, regional security issues and the upcoming NATO summit in Chicago.
The Parliamentary Forum of the Community of Democracies is holding an international conference in Vilnius on Thursday, focusing on Eastern European countries. Lawmakers, academicians and representatives of nongovernmental organizations will discuss the existing political situation in the region and the main threats and challenges to democracy and civil society. The outlook of closer cooperation between the European Union and Eastern European countries will be also discussed.
Indivisible alliance
Visiting United States Senator John McCain says the union between European countries, including Lithuania, and the United States is indivisible.
Giving a speech at Vilnius University on Wednesday, the senator compared the transatlantic relation to family.
"I know there are some in this country and in this region who see America's focus on the Middle East, who hear about the shift towards Asia and they think America is turning its back especially on Central European countries like Lithuania," McCain said.
"Let me be absolutely clear: our Alliance with Lithuania and with Europe, like the democratic values, is indivisible. This is not just made by the US president but by the US Congress and thus by all the American people we represent. This is a commitment taken not by common interest but by our shared ideals, our shared history and our long ties. We are literally family," the US senator said.
Pressure on Belarus and Ukraine
Having once again called Belarus "the last dictatorship in Europe", McCain said the effect of sanctions against the country's President Alexander Lukashenko's regime was manifested by the release of former presidential candidate Andrey Sanikov and his associate Dmitriy Bondarenko.
"Now it's not the time to reduce pressure on Lukashenko (...). The United States and the EU must continue to strengthen our common front in pressing Lukashenko to release political prisoners and hold free and fair elections," McCain, who lost in the 2008 presidential race to democratic candidate Barack Obama, said.
In his words, Ukrainian authorities, criticized by the West for the imprisonment of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her several associates, should also not expect closer relations with the EU if they continue persecuting political opponents.
"Ukraine cannot achieve closer relations with Europe as it seeks, until the current government ends its selective prosecution of its political opponents and unconditionally pardons its opposition leaders now in jail and holds free and fear elections," McCain said.
Winds of change
Winds of change may be starting to blow in Russia, United States Republican Senator John McCain said in Vilnius on Wednesday.
"Mr. Putin will return to the presidency as winds of change may be starting to blow in Russia," he said reminding of massive anti-Putin protests last winter.
"A lot have changed over the past four years both in Russia and in the world. From the very outset of the Arab spring, I have believed that this call for freedom and justice would not be confined to the Arab world“, he said in his speech at Vilnius University.
