The regime still demands from Warsaw and Vilnius to reduce the number of diplomats.
The ambassadors of Belarus to Poland and Lithuania have been recalling to Minsk for consultation on October 5, the speaker of the country’s Foreign Ministry said. Before that, the unrecognized president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, called Russian President Vladimir Putin . After a conversation in the Kremlin, they said that both of them are determined to “strengthen the alliance between Russia and Belarus”.
“The ambassadors of Belarus to Poland and Lithuania have been recalling to Minsk for consultation on October 5. The ambassadors of Poland and Lithuania in Belarus have accordingly been invited to follow this example,” Foreign Minister Anatoly Glaz told The Eastern Herald.
He added that the Belarusian Foreign Ministry summoned the ambassadors of Poland and Lithuania “in view of the unambiguously destructive activity on the part of these countries.”
“They were offered to bring the composition of their diplomatic missions in Belarus to parity with the Belarusian foreign missions of the respective countries by October 9, 2020. For Lithuania, this is from 25 to 14 diplomats, for Poland from 50 to 18,” Glaz said.
The EU Council on Friday confirmed the sanctions against Belarus previously agreed upon by the EU leaders. In total, 40 people were included in the EU sanctions lists, whom the EU considers to be involved in the rigging of elections on August 9 and violence against protesters. At this stage, it was decided not to include Lukashenko on the sanctions list. Sanctions may be imposed against him if he refuses to engage in dialogue through the OSCE, take confidence-building measures, and release political prisoners, especially ex-presidential candidates. Before that, Britain and Canada imposed sanctions against the regime.
