Polish and Lithuanian Presidents meet in Vilnius
President Andrzej Duda said on Saturday in Vilnius he is convinced his current visit to Lithuania brings the two countries closer to implementing good-neighbourly relations, a good atmosphere of dialogue, as seen when Lech Kaczynski was the President of Poland. The president was accompanied by the head of the NSB, minister Paweł Soloch.
President Andrzej Duda met with Lithuania's president, Dalia Grybauskaite, on Saturday. The day before, he took part in the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Lithuania's independence.
"I would like once again to extend my best wishes and congratulations - to you Madame President, other authorities of the Republic of Lithuania, all Lithuanian citizens, and Lithuanians dispersed all over the world - on the occasion of this great jubilee of the reinstatement of the Lithuanian state," Andrzej Duda said after the meeting with the Lithuanian president.
"Thank you for inviting us, because this was an opportunity to show that we are neighbours, friends and allies of Lithuania," he stressed.
As the Polish president stated, this visit has "symbolic meaning".
"I talked with President Dalia Grybauskaite, recalling the great Polish-Lithuanian relations pursued by President Lech Kaczynski, first with President (Valdas) Adamkus, and later with Madame President until the tragic death of the president (Lech Kaczynski) on April 10 in 2010," Andrzej Duda said. As he added, on April 8 Lech Kaczynski talked to President Grybauskaite.
"And I hope, I am convinced, that thanks to today's visit we will return to that atmosphere of good dialogue between the authorities and between our countries and the actual implementation of very good neighbourly relations," Andrzej Duda stressed.
The president also argued that political co-operation between Poland and Lithuania has continued to develop "above all in building security," he said, pointing out that Poland and Lithuania were fighting for the resolutions of the NATO summit in Warsaw in 2016.
On Saturday afternoon, the Polish president and First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda laid flowers at a memorial to Poland's inter-war leader Jozef Pilsudski in Vilnius' renowned Rasos Cemetery.
Andrzej Duda and First Lady met also with representatives of the Polish scouts organisation and a circle of the Association of Poles in Lithuania (ZLP), called the Vilnius Patriotic Youth.
Saturday was the third day of the president's visit to Lithuania. On Thursday, President Duda met with Poles living in Lithuania. On Friday he took part, along with more than a dozen European leaders, in celebrations of the centenary of Lithuania' reinstatement as a state.
Source: PAP