(Bloomberg) -- Lithuania expelled three Chinese embassy employees, potentially escalating tensions even as the Baltic nation’s incoming prime minister expressed openness to restoring diplomatic relations with Beijing.
The Foreign Ministry said the personnel were not accredited, citing activities incompatible with the Vienna convention. The three will have a week to leave the country, the ministry said in a statement on Friday. Remigijus Motuzas, the head of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said the issue was procedural rather than espionage-related.
“It’s usual diplomatic practice,” Motuzas told public radio, saying the individuals’ accreditation had expired. “Diplomats residing in a specific foreign country must be accredited.”
Lithuania’s prime minister-designate, Social Democrat Gintautas Paluckas, signaled support for repairing ties with China by returning envoys to both capitals. Although the country wouldn’t reverse course on its China policy, diplomatic ties between the two present a “possibility of exchanging views and information,” he told Bloomberg News in an interview on Nov. 22.
Beijing downgraded its diplomatic ties with the Baltic nation three years ago in response to Lithuania’s decision to allow the opening of a Taiwan representative office in Vilnius. China responded to Paluckas’s remarks by saying it hopes the Baltic nation creates conditions for normalizing relations.
“The wrong behavior of Lithuania on Taiwan-related questions is the fundamental reason causing difficulties between the bilateral relationship,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Monday. “China’s door for dialog is always open.”
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