The chief advisor to the Lithuanian president on national security, Deividas Matulionis, has distanced himself from the position he expressed the day before, when he linked the issue of possible transit of Belarusian fertilizers to the expansion of the American military presence in Lithuania.
On Tuesday, Matulionis said in an interview with the radio station Ziniu radijas that US representatives have not yet discussed with Lithuanian officials the possibility of resuming the transit of Belarusian fertilizers through the Port of Klaipeda; however, if this were to happen in the long term, such a decision could be linked to the deployment of additional American military forces in the country.
"This was a spontaneous reaction to a journalist's question, but I want to say that it is not appropriate for me to speculate in the subjunctive mood (about what would happen if)," Matulionis told the BNS agency on Wednesday.
"So it was somewhat an unthought-out, unconsidered reflection. It is important to emphasize that this does not represent the position of the presidential administration as an institution," he added.
The BNS agency reported that last week the US promised to lift sanctions on Belarusian potash fertilizers in exchange for the release of more than 100 prisoners from Belarus.
