VILNIUS 's The hunt for KGB collaborators has continued in the nation's highest institutions, with the Special Investigation Service saying on Wednesday that it had no information regarding its own employees' possible cooperation with the Soviet security agency.
The service said that candidates for positions must fill in applications where they must indicate whether they had collaborated with special services of any country, including the Soviet Union.
According to the service, no candidate had indicated such ties.
The Special Investigation Service said that an absolute majority of its staff has a right to work with certain classified information. Permits to work with classified information are issued by the State Security Department, and the Special Investigation Service has received no information from it that would prevent an employee from working with information which is a state secret, the Baltic News Service reported.
Both the media and government leaders have been abuzz in recent days over reports that many top state officials once served as KGB reservists. The recent confession by Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis that he had enlisted as a reservist with the Soviet security apparatus intensified the hunt.
State Security Department Director General Arvydas Pocius also confessed to being a KGB reservist.
An ad hoc commission formed on Tuesday will decide whether Valionis and Pocius should stay on their posts. Already some opposition parliamentarians have insisted that the two leaders resign their posts immediately.
Earlier this week Valionis said that he would step down if his former status as KGB reservist became a problem.
