Lithuanian speaker of parliament Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen toured Yad Vashem and opened an honorary Lithuanian consulate in Netanya Monday. During her visit she met with Israeli president Isaac Herzog and Knesset speaker Mickey Levy.

She plans to visit Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh in the occupied territories as well, and to attend a round-table discussion with Palestinian women’s organizations. The trip to Israel and the occupied territories is scheduled from February 6 to 10.

She pledged Lithuanian support to Israel in the international arena.

Speaking Monday after touring Yad Vashem, she said the Lithuanian Government is devoting and will devote much attention to commemorating the Holocaust. “The book of our shared history has some very painful pages. We cannot remove them from the book nor forget them. Our fellow Lithuanian citizens who contributed so much to the creation and sustenance of our country were murdered in their own land, the land they made famous as the Jerusalem of the North. But we must do everything we can to insure the tragedy is never repeated in Lithuania or elsewhere in the world.”

She opened an honorary Lithuanian consulate in Netanya on Monday as well.

Speaking Tuesday about the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries after meeting her counterpart Mickey Levy, she said: “Over these years the ties between Israel and Lithuania have deepened, strengthened and matured. Today we speak as two free, developed and democratic countries respected around the world who are able to offer one another much.”

On Wednesday she was scheduled to meet president Herzog and attend a banquet where she was supposed to present Knesset speaker Levy the Vilna Gaon commemorative coin minted by the Bank of Lithuania.