{"id":527542,"date":"2026-03-22T16:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T13:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=527542"},"modified":"2026-03-22T21:19:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T18:19:02","slug":"coale-responds-to-criticism-of-meeting-with-lithuanian-lawmakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/coale-responds-to-criticism-of-meeting-with-lithuanian-lawmakers","title":{"rendered":"Coale Responds to Criticism of Meeting with Lithuanian Lawmakers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>U.S. presidential envoy for Belarus <b>John Coale<\/b> has commented on criticism of his meeting with European Parliament member <b>Petras Gra\u017eulis<\/b> and two members of the Lithuanian Seimas \u2014 <b>Rimas Jank\u016bnas<\/b> and <b>Ignas V\u0117g\u0117l\u0117<\/b>. The meeting took place in Vilnius ahead of Coale\u2019s visit to Minsk.<\/p>\n<p><i>\u201cI meet with lots of people to get the viewpoints of many. Doesn\u2019t mean I agree or don\u2019t agree. But I learn.\u201d<\/i> Coale wrote on X.<\/p>\n<p>The comment came in response to a post by <b>Valery Tsepkalo<\/b>, a would-be candidate in Belarus\u2019s 2020 presidential election, who drew attention to criticism of the meeting from Lithuanian President <b>Gitanas Naus\u0117da<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>Naus\u0117da, in turn, expressed the view that the current White House administration is seeking out politically like-minded figures.<\/p>\n<p><i>\u201cI think that before meeting with such people, one should very carefully determine whom they represent and what values they uphold, and then perhaps the desire to meet would diminish,\u201d<\/i> the Lithuanian leader said.<\/p>\n<p>It was previously reported that the meeting had been organised by Gra\u017eulis through the Group of Sovereign Nations of Europe, which maintains ties with the <b>Donald Trump<\/b> administration. According to him, the discussion covered relations with Belarus, weather balloons, detained Lithuanian trucks and fertiliser sanctions. The participants\u2019 position differs from that of the Lithuanian government \u2014 in particular, they support political-level dialogue with Minsk.<\/p>\n<p>It should be noted that V\u0117g\u0117l\u0117 ran for president of Lithuania in 2024, finishing third. During the campaign, he said he would prefer Belarus to be a non-democratic state that would serve as a buffer zone with Russia. He also opposed the presence of the Office of <b>Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya<\/b> in Vilnius. During the presidential campaign, a journalistic investigation was also published raising suspicions that his family\u2019s business may have been involved in circumventing sanctions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. presidential envoy for Belarus John Coale has commented on criticism of his meeting with European Parliament member Petras Gra\u017eulis and two members of the Lithuanian Seimas \u2014 Rimas Jank\u016bnas and Ignas V\u0117g\u0117l\u0117. The meeting took place in Vilnius ahead of Coale\u2019s visit to Minsk. \u201cI meet with lots of people to get the viewpoints [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":526945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/69c0329b15258.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Coale Responds to Criticism of Meeting with Lithuanian Lawmakers"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338,143090],"tags":[143118],"class_list":["post-527542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news","category-politics","tag-belarus"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}