EU ambassadors not welcomed back to Minsk

Official Minsk will react to the decision of EU Council on extending sanctions “immediately”.

Minsk does not want to see the recalled ambassadors of the EU members states that supported imposing sanctions, the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs says.

“We are forced to immediately begin the implementation of the set of response measures. Our European partners were informed in advance about such a possibility,” Belarusian MFA spokesman Andrei Savinykh said in a statement on Friday.

According to Savinykh, “in current conditions the Belarusian side does not see any necessity in the presence on the territory of Belarus of the recalled ambassadors of the states that have voted in favour of this decision.”

The MFA official representative said “the Belarusian side regrets that the Council of the European Union took a decision to introduce additional sanctions aimed at some Belarusian citizens and enterprises”. “This step moves even further away the prospects of normalization of the relations and resumption of the dialog on the issues that are sensitive to the sides,” the spokesman stressed.

“The European politicians are captured by the conflict thinking, they remain hostages of the coercion and blackmail logic,” the Belarusian MFA representative said.