Envoys sacked over YouTube row

Two high-ranking Lithuanian diplomats have been fired after criticising the president in telephone conversations that were secretly recorded and leaked on YouTube.

President Dalia Grybauskaite’s office said Lithuania’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, Arunas Zurauskas, and its ambassador to Hungary, Nerijus Juska, will be removed from duty by September 30.

It is not clear who recorded and put the diplomats’ conversations on YouTube in July.

In the conversations, the ambassadors criticised and joked with each other about Grybauskaite, Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkeviciusand and the countries where they serve.