Lithuanian MP Rozova denied access to classified info 2 years ago

VILNIUS - Lithuanian MP Irina Rozova has confirmed that she was denied access to classified information two years ago.  

"I had had the permission for years, I think, since 2005. I don't have it now. I applied a couple of years ago but was denied," she told BNS on Wednesday. 

Rozova, a member of the Russian Alliance and of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania – Christian Families Alliance political group in the Seimas, said she did not remember what reason she had been given for being denied permission to work with classified materials.

The speaker of the Seimas grants such permission to parliamentarians if the country's intelligence agency recommends doing so. 

Earlier on Wednesday, the Seimas' Committee on National Security and Defense (NSGK) discussed Rozova's participation in an event of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO) that sparked protests in Georgia in June.

Vaidotas Mazeika, deputy director of Lithuania's State Security Department (VSD), told journalists after the meeting that Russia was using the IAO for its foreign policy goals and described Lithuanian politicians' participation in the assembly as "a risk factor".