"One of our tasks will be moderating the situation and we should not take any positions here. I didn't promise that Lithuania will be the pusher of the matter," Linkevičius told BNS after meeting with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe of the European Parliament (EP) on Tuesday.
"In the run-up to the presidency, we are not trying to take any positions but, instead, are working to accommodate all opinions and not be pushers of some matters (...). We will not be the ones who generate the matter," said the minister.
ALDE, the third-largest group at the European Parliament, has urged the EU to follow the US example and freeze the accounts of the Russian officials suspected of complicity in Magnitsky's death.
Magnitsky, the Russian lawyer, claimed he had revealed a 235-million-dollar tax evasion scheme involving state officials, but was arrested and died in prison in 2009.
A member of the ALDE delegation, Hans van Baalen of the Netherlands, said he raised the issue at the meeting in Vilnius. The MEP expressed certitude that Lithuania supports human rights but acknowledged that the attitude at the same instrument was different.
"I want to make sure to (Russian President Vladimir Putin) and his people that those who are related to human rights violations cannot do so without any consequence," the Dutch politician told BNS.
"I am convinced that Lithuania is on the side of human rights. The question is what is the most effective to do. I think that still it is a Magnitsky law," he added.
In response to the Magnitsky case, the United States blacklisted some individuals linked with Magnitsky's death who are banned from receiving US visas and have their bank accounts in the US frozen. In response, Russia banned adoption of Russian orphans by US citizens.
Lithuania will hold EU Council presidency in the second half of this year.
