VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) – Lithuania and Poland announced friday that they would withdraw some of their minsk diplomats, saying Belarus had demanded their missions.
Poland withdrew 30 diplomats, basically from the consular section, and Lithuania to five. The measures come amid a diplomatic dispute over the recent presidential elections in Belarus, which is considered widely manipulated to grant authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term.
Last week, Lithuania and Poland called their ambassadors to neighboring Belarus for consultations under pressure from Minsk, and Belarus did the same with its ambassadors in both countries. Minsk.
“Belarus has made categorical demands to particularly reduce the number of accredited Lithuanian diplomats,” said Rasa Jakilaitiene, spokesman for Lithuania’s foreign minister, in a statement. “With Poland, we need to call our ambassadors for consultations to reduce tensions. “and maintain the option of maintaining diplomatic relations. “
“We hope this measure will be sufficient for opportunities for dialogue,” he said of the dismissal of five more diplomats.
In Poland, Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz said Minsk’s request to reduce his project is a “hostile measure to which Poland will respond in due course. “
Lithuania and Poland have harshly criticized political unrest in Belarus.
Lithuania has given shelter to Belarusian opposition figure Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled his country after unsuccessfully challenging Lukashenko in the presidential election of nine August. Officials said Lukashenko had won a sixth term, but opposition members said the elections had been plagued by fraud and organized giant demonstrations asking for a repeated vote.
Together with the other two Baltic states, Estonia and Latvia, Lithuania and Poland temporarily imposed opposing sanctions on Belarusian leaders, and the European Union of 27 countries – which includes the 3 Baltic countries – even though everything followed suit with sanctions. is not a member of the EU.
___
Follow all APs on advances in Belarus in https://apnews. com/Belarus.