Azernews.Az

By Farman Aydin, AzerNEWS

The autumn session of PACE continues, and this time again the members of the assembly did not lag behind each other in exhibiting a biased position against Azerbaijan.

Among them is Gabrielius Landsbergis, the current chairman of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania. At the PACE session in Strasbourg, Landsbergis, who tried to express his views against Azerbaijan, forgot to talk about himself and the country he represents.

First of all, it is necessary to advise Landsbergis, who aspires to be the leader of his country, that it is not acceptable both politically and ethically to speak behind a country that is not participating in the session. However, this step of his seems to indicate his political illiteracy.

Lithuanian MFA tries to criticize the country while talking about democracy and transparency in Azerbaijan. However, he is not aware that his country has become a vassal of Europe today. Yes, today, Lithuania is a de facto vassal state, and it bases its policy only on instructions and orders from the West.

That is why Lithuania is active in the campaign of pressure and blackmail from the West against Azerbaijan.

In addition, since Landsbergis himself is ambitious for the leadership of Lithuania, he unconditionally fulfils the orders of the West. But he is not even suitable for the level of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. For example, his participation in the opposition's protest in Tbilisi and the official Tbilisi's objection to Lithuania in this regard show how incompetent Landsbergis is in diplomacy. Undoubtedly, such behaviour of the person who heads the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is against all diplomatic rules. And today, unfortunately, such a person is trying to teach Azerbaijan a "democracy lesson" from Strasbourg.

By carrying out the order of the West, Landsbergis actually destroys Lithuanian-Azerbaijani relations.

Growing Slavophobia and Islamophobia in the country

It is ridiculous that Lithuania's foreign minister should teach others, because Lithuania itself is a vassal state with formal sovereignty and high levels of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and Slavophobia.

Anti-Semitism - The crimes committed by the Lithuanian fascists during World War II were surprising even in the German Waffen-SS groups. Even today, anti-Semitic sentiments are on the rise in Lithuania.

A part of the country's population, ethnic Russians, are not considered citizens. If the anti-Slavic spirit existed before the Ukrainian-Russian war, after the war it has already become a trend. A recent poll indicates more hostile attitudes towards the local Russian-speaking population. The share of respondents who say they do not want to live next door to Russians has grown from 6.2 percent last year to 16 percent now. Moreover, 74.6 percent say that their attitudes towards local Russians have worsened over the last five years. Vida Montvydaitė, head of the government’s Department for Ethnic Minorities, considers the trend disturbing and even dangerous.

“These trends are of course regrettable, alarming and even dangerous,” she tells LRT, Lithuania’s local media outlet.

However, because of the war between the two countries, it is considered an inadequate and inhumane step to blame the civilian population and create discrimination on national grounds.

Lithuania also competes with other European countries in its anti-Islam stance.

Although the Muslim community has been trying to build a mosque in Vilnius for several years now, the authorities do not allow it, and Muslims have to gather in ordinary apartments.

The public opinion polls conducted by the Ethnic Studies Institute in 2016 and 2017 show that Lithuanians' opinion of Muslims has recently worsened.

More than 40% of people would not want to live in the same neighbourhood with believers of Islam or rent them housing.

Today, in fact, Azerbaijan should raise the issue of Islamophobia in Lithuania from the highest tribunes, as it is going to surpass the most Islamophobic countries in Europe.

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