Lithuania's parlt sends Pavilionis to Georgia to help to resolve political crisis

VILNIUS – The Board of the Lithuanian Seimas on Thursday held an emergency meeting and decided to send Zygimantas Pavilionis, chairman of the parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs, to Georgia to help to resolve the ongoing political crisis in the country.

Up until now, trips of Lithuanian lawmakers have been banned due to the pandemic, therefore, the existing rules had to be changed to make an exception for the Foreign Committee chair.

Pavilonis will leave for Tbilisi on Friday. He hopes to act as a mediator between the conflicting sides.

"I have old personal input from the times of President Valdas Adamkus. I led the Georgia group in the past Seimas, I have many friends on both sides and I am going to try to reconcile them," Pavilionis told BNS on Thursday.

"Our ambassador was the first to go to the United National Movement's headquarters where the whole opposition is centered and which the special forces want to storm into, shielded it with its own body. It has not happened yet but who know what might happen this night," he added.

Pavilionis plans to meet with representatives of both the ruling block and the opposition in Tbilisi. He also hopes to speak with Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, adding that Georgian politicians usually take Lithuanian representatives' opinion into account.

"We will sit with one side and the other and look for solutions. As if Georgia really plans to join the European Union and NATO, (…) so by throwing each other into prison they will definitely not get there. They must learn the Lithuanian lesson that the position and the opposition must work together on strategic goals," Pavilionis told BNS.

Earlier on Thursday, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing concern over the political situation in Georgia.

Unrests in Georgia were sparked by a Tbilisi court's decision to satisfy the prosecution service's request to change the measure of suppression for the immunity-stripped leader of the opposition party from bail to detention.