Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius has urged the Seimas to rethink their votes on the spelling of Polish names in Lithuanian documents so they could properly honour the death of the Polish head of state who died at the weekend.

Prior to his death on Saturday, Polish President Lech Kaczynski said he was optimistic that the law could be amended so that ethnic Poles could write their names in Lithuanian passports with the correct spelling. Currently Poles have to use Lithuanian approximations for the spelling of their names.

If the law was changed, it would signal a proper farewell to Kaczynski, the prime minister said.

“I hope the incident will create a force that moves to correct the mistake and relieve ourselves in conscience for the really ill farewell to Lech Kaczynski. It is a Seimas affair to evaluate what is important: respect for the deceased president and the strategic partnership between Lithuania and Poland, or to appease our internal grievances,” Kubilius said on radio.

The deceased Polish president visited Lithuania last Thursday to discuss the issue among others with Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite.

Grybauskaite’s spokesman Linas Balsys said on radio that the whole issue has been over-politicized and should simply be solved.

“Indeed, perhaps the issue is too politicized. Maybe on both sides it is enough – both in Poland and Lithuania – where there are radical politicians who escalate this issue,” Balsys said.

According to him, this president to be an important issue for bilateral relations with Poland.

“Especially in the context of bilateral relations between Lithuania and Poland, she [the president] said that consistently in Warsaw and in other meetings with President Lech Kaczynski, the question was broached. The government’s proposal, as the problem could be addressed, namely the validation of non-Lithuanian Latin alphabet letters spelling is supported by the president,” Balsys said adding that the issue is not linguistic but political.

Lithuania is home to around 200,000 ethnic Poles.