Poland's foreign minister has rejected the Lithuanian president's claim that Warsaw is making friends with Russia at the expense of her smaller neighbours.
“I cannot imagine that such a statement could be made at a time when Polish pilots are guarding the skies over the Baltic states,” said Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who is attending the NATO summit in Chicago.
“It seems to me that it would be easier to establish rights under the European Charter on Minority Languages, than to build exotic theories,” he added, referring to ongoing efforts by Lithuania's Polish minority to use Polish versions of their names in official documents.
According to the Baltic News Service (BNS), Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė made the offending remarks at a meeting in Chicago with representatives of the America's Lithuanian community.
“For some reason, Polish politicians have decided that in the short run it would be good to have a friend in Russia, and other smaller countries that are not so important can be be left as sacrificial lambs,” she is quoted as saying.
“It seems to me that this is the role envisaged for us,” she added.
Nevertheless, politicians in Vilnius have nor leapt to applaud the remarks of President Grybauskaitė.
Former Lithuanian prime minister Gediminas Kirkilas, currently a member of the opposition, labelled the remarks as “careless”, in an interview with Radio Znad Willii, a Polish language service in Vilnius.
“The president's statement surprised me, along with many other politicians and analysts,” he said.
Lithuanian daily Lietuvos Rytas described Grybauskaitė's declaration as “undiplomatic,” adding that the paper hoped that the statement “does not hinder the achievement of the objectives of Lithuanian foreign policy.”
In Sikorski's annual foreign policy statement this March, the Polish minister had pledged that “we will continue to work towards Polish-Russian reconciliation,” adding that “we hope that the new president of Russia will lead his country on a path of modernization, in line with the expectations of Russian society."
Poland's relations with Vilnius soured in 2011, after the failure of bilateral talks about Polish minority schools in Lithuania.
Vilnius introduced laws in September 2011 ensuring that a larger number of subjects must be taught in Lithuanian, regardless of whether schools are for ethnic minorities.
Foreign Minister Audronius Ažubalis commented that Lithuanians “do not need a big brother,” and that Poland should not try and influence the country's internal policies.
