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Japanese Emperor Akihito on Saturday praised the courage of Lithuanians in the face of occupation and other hardships as he visited the former Soviet republic on the penultimate leg of a European tour.

"We go back in our memories to the hardships of World War II and later history which was full of trials, and are deeply impressed by the courage and dignity with which your people met all the troubles," Akihito said in a speech at a luncheon in his honour at the presidential palace.

He also stressed that restoration of independence of the three Baltic states in 1991 was "an exclusive event that marked the great flow of the history."

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko were in Vilnius on the fourth leg of a visit to Europe which has taken members of the Japanese royal family into former Soviet territory for the first time.

The European tour of the Japanese imperial couple began Monday in Sweden, before moving on to the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The visits to the three Baltic states, which were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union at the close of World War II, mark the first time members of the Japanese royal family have set foot on former Soviet territory.

Because of a territorial dispute, Japan has never signed a peace treaty officially ending World War II with the Soviet Union or Russia.

After being welcomed earlier Saturday at Vilnius international airport by Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus, Akihito, wearing a dark blue suit, and his wife, dressed in a cream-coloured outfit, were given a red carpet welcome at the presidential palace in the old town of Vilnius.

Soldiers dressed in 14th century uniforms and armed with spears, shields and swords stood to attention as a crowd of around 400 people waving Lithuanian and Japanese flags greeted the royal couple.

After the official luncheon, 73-year-old Akihito and his wife laid wreaths at a memorial to the victims of January 13, 1991, the day Soviet tanks rolled into Vilnius to try to crush Lithuania's burgeoning independence movement.

The emperor also visited a monument to Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat based in the southern Lithuanian city of Kaunas during World War II, who defied the orders of the Japanese government by issuing exit visas to thousands of Polish, Lithuanian and German Jews, allowing them to flee Nazi occupation.

"I told the emperor that Sugihara issued just 2,139 visas, but they saved more than 6,000 lives," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Petras Vaitekunas told AFP.

Vaitekunas said Akihito asked how the site in Vilnius where the monument stands was related to Sugihara.

"I told him that in fact Sugihara worked in Kaunas, but the place where the monument stands is the place where common values meet, and this is important because Lithuanian and Japanese hearts come together here," Vaitekunas said.

Akihito and Michiko attended an open-air folk festival in the evening, where they listened to national songs and were laden with gifts given to them by ordinary Lithuanians.

The Kriksciunai family from Vilnius presented the emperor with a horseshoe for luck, some traditional webbing and a dower chest.

Tradespeople presented the royal couple with amber, wood and clay handicrafts.

The emperor and Michiko, who was dressed in a kimono for the festival, also stopped to meet people and talked with some of them.

Darius Velicka, 26, who visited Japan's Hiroshima in 2005 as part of a European Union programme was delighted at having been accorded a moment of the emperor's attention.

"I had a picture of the Kohara family who hosted me during my visit. The emperor blessed them," Velicka told AFP.

"It was a memorable event for me," he added.

The imperial couple were set to travel on Sunday to Britain, the last stop on their five-nation visit to Europe.

by Arturas Racas