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“The Latvian ambassador was asked to leave the country within 24 hours. All diplomatic and administrative staff of the embassy were also asked to leave Belarus within 48 hours. We suggest that they leave an administrative and technical officer to supervise the building, ”Makejus said.
On Monday, the historic red and white Belarus flag was raised between the flags of the countries participating in the World Hockey Championships in Riga.
Latvian Foreign Minister Edgaras Rinkevičius and Riga Mayor Martinis Stakis replaced the official Belarusian flag with the historic red and white Belarusian flag at the Radisson Blu Hotel Latvija, where the Belarusian hockey team resides during the championship.
“We cannot leave such provocative actions unanswered,” Makejus said.
“We are surprised to see such actions at a time when Belarus has expressed its determination to carry out an open and transparent investigation into the Ryanair incident with the participation of international experts.”
However, not only defamatory political statements are made against Belarus, but also concrete actions and provocations are taken, “he added.
In response to the Belarusian decision, the Latvian ministry summoned the Belarusian trustee and reported that Belarusian diplomats would be expelled from the country and could return only when relations between the two countries were normalized.
Stakis said the gesture was an initiative by the Riga City Council to express its support for the suffering of the regime of authoritarian Belarusian leader Aliaksandr Lukashenko. According to him, the initiative was supported by the Belarusian opposition.
“The flags symbolizing the state terrorist regime are out of place in Riga, so we took them off,” wrote the mayor of the capital on Twitter.
E. Rinkevičius added that the change from the official Belarusian flag to the historical one also shows Latvia’s attitude to the “act of terrorism” by the Belarusian authorities: the forced landing of a passenger plane flying from Athens to Vilnius in Minsk to arrest an opposition journalist.
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