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VILNIUS, Jun 07, BNS - The head of delegation of the Israeli parliament visiting Vilnius, Zeev Bielski, says he is happy with the progress achieved in Lithuania in the settlement of restitution of property of the country's Jews.

"I'm very happy that we make progress. This is something to tens of years ago and was very painful for a long time, but I'm very happy that the government is going ahead with this and, of course, it will be done in cooperation with the Jewish community here," Bielski, the head of the Israeli parliamentary group for relations with Lithuania, told Vilnius journalists on Monday.

Lithuania's government has drafted a bill on compensation of part of the value of the alienated property, however, the parliament is still to open discussions into the document.

Asked whether he did not think that the settlement was partly being held back by absence of a joint stance of Lithuanian Jews on property restitution, Bielski replied: "I am not going into details. As a member of an Israel parliament it is really important to me and we make progress and we bring it to an end and look forward for further relationship."

"We didn't discuss amounts, principle and justice is what's important. As long as government is going towards we are very happy," he explained.

The government proposed paying 128 million litas (EUR 37.1 mln) in the period ranging from 2012 to 2023 for communal property of religious organizations that was confiscated during the Nazi and Soviet regimes.

Registered in late July of 2009, a bill on compensation of Jewish communal property provides for a compensation 113 million litas in cash, also returning two buildings in kind, namely a Jewish museum and a historical Jewish library.

Some 3 million litas of the compensation, that to Jewish nationals aggrieved during the Soviet and Nazi occupation, will be paid out sooner than the aforementioned time frame.

Jewish organizations in Lithuania had different takes on the government's proposals. Speaking before reporters in the government on Tuesday, Deputy Chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community Faina Kukliansky said she is happy to see the government's active approach to the issue, while head of the Jewish Religious Community of Lithuania's second city Kaunas, Moisa Barakas, said the legislative proposal was "disgraceful".

The projected compensation amounts to some 30 percent of the value of Jewish communal property, "which was nationalized and otherwise expropriated by the Nazi and the Soviet totalitarian regimes," reads the explanatory letter to the bill.

Adoption of the bill doesn't amount to Lithuania assuming legal or political responsibility for damage incurred from the occupations by foreign powers, the Justice Ministry has emphasized.

Authors of the draft said the law would demonstrate Lithuania's good will to restore historic justice, improve the relations between Lithuanian and Jewish nations, as well as state respect to human rights and commitments before the global Jewish community and international organizations.

Furthermore, handover of relevant real estate would provide Lithuania with politically stronger positions in its talks with Russia on compensation of damages caused by the totalitarian regime.