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Lithuanian Ambassador to Azerbaijan: â€œI do not think that a Lithuanian actorâ€™s visit to Nagorno Karabakh will have serious impact on our relations with Azerbaijanâ€

05 November 2012 10:18 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Anakhanim Hidayatova-APA. â€œThe relations between Azerbaijan and Lithuania have good groundwork, the sides have signed more than 20 agreements between governments and agencies,â€ Lithuanian Ambassador to Azerbaijan ArtÅ«ras Å½urauskas said in his interview to APA.

Ambassador said the political relations between the two countries were strong enough.
â€œCultural-humanitarian cooperation, mutual relations in the sphere of tourism are developing. Business and economy are special directions of our relations, special attention must be paid to the opportunities of development in these spheres. Azerbaijan and Lithuania can cooperate in the spheres of transport, power engineering, ecology. Construction boom is observed in Azerbaijan. Lithuaniaâ€™s construction industry is perfect and can compete with Turkey. Moreover, we would like to see more Azerbaijani investors in Lithuania,â€ he said.

In his interview, the ambassador also commented on the note of Azerbaijan to the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the participation of a music group from Lithuania in the festival held by Armenian separatists in the occupied Azerbaijanâ€™s Nagorno Karabakh territory: â€œI do not think that a Lithuanian actorâ€™s visit to Nagorno Karabakh will have serious impact on our relations with Azerbaijan. It doesnâ€™t mean that we donâ€™t recognize the occupation fact. The creative personâ€™s visit doesnâ€™t reflect the official position of Lithuania. The citizens of Lithuania have the law â€œOn freedom of movementâ€ and the borders are not closed. We do not hold anyone by force, the citizen himself decides where to go and what may follow. Everyone in Lithuania knows that if someone visits the Azerbaijanâ€™s occupied territories, his or her entry to Azerbaijan will be automatically prohibited. I would like to note that this visit was not organized by government agencies and we explained our position to our counterparts in Baku.