Adomėnas read his statement during a Seimas plenary sitting on Thursday, after Belarus refused visa to Emanuelis Zingeris, chairman of the Lithuanian Seimas Committee on Foreign Affairs who planned to go to Belarus to observe the upcoming general elections on Sunday.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said on Wednesday Belarus denied Zingeris a visa.
"Two parliament members from Germany and Lithuania who planned to observe the elections were told they would be denied visa," the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly said, cited by AFP.
According to the French news agency, Neil Simon, spokesman for the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, named the two banned observers as Marieluise Beck from Germany and Emanuelis Zingeris from Lithuania.
European lawmakers from international observer missions are denied visas in extremely rare cases, and the last time Minsk barred foreign observers was in 2006, Simon said.
Lithuania's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday selective methods of visa issuance for election observers raises doubts over fulfillment of Belarus' international commitments and do not contribute to the possibilities for renewal of dialogue between Belarus and the European Union.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is saddened by Belarus' decision to deny the Lithuanian representative, who planned to observe the Belarusian parliamentary elections as part of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly's mission of short-term observers, a visa. Selective methods of visa issuance for election observers raise doubts over Belarus' openness to the OSCE values of free elections and democracy, fulfillment of Belarus' international commitments and do not contribute to the possibilities for renewal of dialogue between Belarus and the European Union," the ministry said in the statement.
