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“The proposals that we have put forward belong exclusively to the field of Belarusian sovereign rights, and no one has done so and, in fact, I did not intend to discuss this with the Lithuanian side. If we withdraw from diplomatic case studies, such proposals must be implemented by the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ”said A. Hlazas, as quoted by the state news agency BelTA.
After the rigged presidential elections on August 9, Lithuania and Poland took a firm stance against Aliaksandr Lukashenko and expressed their support for Belarusians demanding new elections.
On Friday, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry announced the revocation of its Lithuanian and Polish ambassadors for consultations and called on these countries to reduce the number of diplomats in their embassies in Minsk.
“Due to the apparently destructive activities of the aforementioned countries, they were offered to achieve parity in the composition of their diplomatic missions in Belarus with the foreign missions of Belarus in the respective countries before October 9, 2020,” Hlaz said.
According to him, in this case the number of employees of the Lithuanian Embassy in Minsk should be reduced from 25 to 14, and the number of Polish diplomats from 50 to 18 diplomats.
In response to this statement, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius stated that Lithuania was not yet considering withdrawing the ambassador and other diplomats from Belarus.
“We really do not intend to invite (the ambassador) for consultations and we certainly will not decide anything on the downsizing,” Linkevičius told reporters on Friday.
“We are not interested in reducing communication channels, we see so many problems in it and we are not really going to take that initiative ourselves, because we do not see any benefit in it,” said the minister.
L. Linkevičius noted that Minsk formulated its position as a proposal, not as a requirement. He said he valued the statement with regret and frustration.
According to L. Linkevičius, such a step could have been expected considering the previous rhetoric of the Minsk regime, but such a step is a sign of weakness.
“It was to be expected, because those threats or warnings were not heard for the first time (…) they had repeatedly said that they would take action, even the severance of diplomatic relations was mentioned, at least in rhetoric,” said L. Linkevičius. .
Linkevičius said he had discussed the joint response with Zbigniew Rau, the Polish Foreign Minister, and briefed the European Union’s Foreign Action Service.
At the time, A. Hlazas, commenting on A. Linkevičius’s statement on Saturday, charged him despite the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
“Frankly, it is not clear why this statement by the Lithuanian Foreign Minister is motivated: if it is not a very good knowledge of the Convention or a deliberate will to make a sacred sacrifice for its diplomats,” said a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Belarus.
He added that the call by the Belarusian Foreign Ministry to reduce diplomatic staff also applies to the Polish diplomatic leadership.
“I would like to emphasize once again that our proposals made yesterday are not aimed at deteriorating relations with our neighbors, they are coercive in nature and motivated by the particularly destructive role that Polish and Lithuanian leaders have decided to play in the current situation,” Hlaz said.
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