Recognition of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria is not on Lithuania’s foreign policy agenda, Parliament Speaker Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen said, following a resolution in the Ukrainian parliament declaring Chechnya a “temporary occupied” state.
“The principle of self-determination of nations is enshrined in international documents, it is in place and we respect it. As far as this particular issue is concerned, it’s not on Lithuania’s foreign policy agenda,” Čmilytė-Nielsen told reporters at the Lithuanian parliament, Seimas, on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, 287 members of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada voted in favour of a resolution recognising the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria as an independent territory “temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation”.
The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria was an unrecognised state that existed from 1991 to 2000. It is also the name of the Chechen separatist government in exile since 2000.
In the 1990s, Russia waged two wars against Chechens seeking independence.
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