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Lithuanian American Community, Inc.
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U.S. visa-free regime for Lithuania in November |
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Washington, Oct 17 (ELTA) - U.S. President George W. Bush announced on
Friday that the U.S. would add Lithuania and six more countries to the
U.S. Visa Waiver Program in about a month. The U.S. president promised to add Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and South Korea to the Visa Waiver Program. President Valdas Adamkus stated that another "artificial division that separated the citizens of Old Europe from the citizens of New Europe" disappeared. "This is really pleasing news to all the people of Lithuania. Many of our fellow country people living on both sides of the Atlantic have been long waiting for the possibility to meet unrestrictedly with their family members and friends," Adamkus stated. "Liberalized and simpler travel to the United States has been our goal and expectation that we have been seeking for a long time." President Adamkus pointed out that this step made by the U.S. administration reaffirmed that Lithuania was a reliable and responsible partner of the United States. "The introduction of a visa-free regime will further strengthen transatlantic ties and strategic partnership and promote cultural and business contacts between our two countries and their people," Adamkus underlined. According to the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, Bush informed Lithuanian Ambassador to the U.S. Audrius Bruzga that the visa-free regime would start to be applied for Lithuanian citizens going to the U.S. in November. During the meeting, U.S. President George W. Bush expressed his joy over especially good bilateral relations between Lithuania and the U.S. and stated that Lithuania fully complied with the requirements to enter the U.S. Visa Waiver Program. "Now the "window" to the U.S. is widely opened for Lithuanians and I am convinced that our tourists and entrepreneurs will feel the advantages of these changes and respect them," Ambassador Bruzga told U.S. President Bush at their meeting. President Bush noted that the afore-mentioned countries had been allowing U.S. citizens to visit them without visas for already a long period of time. "These close friends of the United States told me that it was unfair that their people had to encounter bureaucratic obstacles, when other allies avoided them. These countries agreed to exchange information about danger to our people. They also agreed to use the new electronic system for registration," U.S. President Bush stated on Friday. According to political scientist Lauryno Kasciunas, the opinions of observers that the visa-free regime was introduced to the countries as a particular "compensation" for their support for the U.S., were fairly grounded. "Of course, we cannot reject the possibility that it might be related to the support for the U.S., and the Republicans could "push" this affair to its end before the termination of Bush's term of office. It was done at last, since the citizens of Western European countries enter the U.S. without visas, though they express less support for the U.S. sometimes. Undoubtedly, there are a lot of other relevant nuances as well," Kasciunas told Elta on Friday. The citizens of Lithuania going to the U.S. will have to use the Electronic System for Travel Authorization. The Visa Waiver Program earlier included 27 countries, including most of Western Europe. Exclusion has been a sore point among some new NATO allies that have supported U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of those countries, including Poland, did not make Friday's list because they could not meet admission requirements. |
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