By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – China on Friday signaled openness to restoring full ties with Lithuania after Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene acknowledged a “mistake” in allowing Taiwan to open its office in Vilnius.

China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported that Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian urged Lithuania to “return to the right track of adhering to the one-China principle and accumulate conditions for the normalization of China-Lithuania relations.”

Lin said: “China’s door to communication with Lithuania remains open. We hope that Lithuania can translate its willingness to improve bilateral ties into real actions and correct its wrongdoings at an early date.”

The statement from Beijing came after Ruginiene said earlier this week: “I believe that Lithuania really jumped in front of the train and lost.”

Her remarks to The Baltic News Service (BNS) on Tuesday came in reference to Lithuania allowing Taiwan to open a “Taiwanese Representative Office” in Vilnius in 2021.

The move angered Beijing, which retaliated by scaling down diplomatic ties with the Baltic nation.

In 2022, Lithuania opened its representative office in Taipei.

China claims Taiwan as its “breakaway province,” while Taipei has insisted on its independence since 1949, enjoying full diplomatic relations with at least 12 countries.

According to Ruginiene, although Taiwanese representative offices have also been opened in other European countries, they opened their doors “after normal coordination and choosing the name ‘Taipei Representative Office,’” The Baltic Times reported.

“And those countries somehow managed to keep their ties with China completely businesslike, but (...) it was probably a huge mistake on Lithuania’s part to think that if we offered something ourselves and were the first to do something, the world would suddenly appreciate it. Well, we tried in this case, we have the Taiwanese Representative Office, but the world did not appreciate it, no one appreciated it,” Ruginiene said.