Press release, 16 March 2014
The Speaker of the Seimas Loreta Graužinienė arrived in Kiev as the head of a Seimas delegation and had a tête-à-tête meeting with the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada and interim President of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov.
Before her meeting with the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, interim President of Ukraine, Oleksandr Turchynov, Speaker Graužinienė paid tribute to those who died in Maidan. Photo by the Secretariat of the Speaker of the Seimas
The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada thanked Loreta Graužinienė for her visit at this complicated time. Mr Turchynov emphasised that Lithuania for him had always been and would forever remain a reliable friend. Both speakers noted that the Russian attempt to redraw borders could not be tolerated and all democratic communities should put every effort to prevent this.
Speaker Graužinienė assured the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada that the three Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, supported the integrity of Ukraine and said that the referendum in Crimea on the annexation of a part of the territory of Ukraine to Russia were against the standards of the international law.
Loreta Graužinienė has had a meeting with the Lithuanian community in Ukraine today and laid flowers at the monument to the Ukrainian poet, writer and painter Taras Shevchenko. She has plans to go the Maidan Square and to meet with the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Member of the Verkhovna Rada Petro Poroshenko.
The leader of the Lithuanian Parliament and Kęstutis Masiulis, a member of the Seimas Delegation to the trilateral parliamentary assembly of Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, will take part in the meeting of the Presidium of the parliamentary assembly.
Secretariat of the Speaker of the Seimas, tel. +370 5 239 6002
Dalia Valentienė, Adviser to the Speaker of the Seimas, tel. +370 5 239 6030, mob. +370 698 42 786
