Farewell Belarus! :: Charter'97 :: News

Soon native Belarus will be abandoned by its Foreign Minister Mikhail Khvostov. According to unofficial information, his candidacy was approved by Alexander Lukashenko as Belarus plenipotentiary ambassador in Washington, USA.

Rumors about Khvostov’s new assignment have been circulating long ago. Among Khvostov’s possible diplomatic destinations they also mentioned Paris. However, the North American continent is pretty familiar to the ex-Foreign Minister, for in the aftermath of the 1996 referendum he gave up his job as deputy Foreign Minister and headed for Canada, where he worked as an ambassador. He managed to retain his Minister’s seat for more than a year, having replaced at the post the current head of the presidential Administration Ural Latypov, who, as is known, retained his influence on the Ministry even with Khvostov at the head.

It’s worth mention that, when ranked as Minister, Khvostov had been blacklisted in the end of last year as persona-non-grata on US and EU territories, along with Lukashenko and six more officials. However, it is not really Khvostov, who became persona-non-grata, but rather any person, who occupies Minister’s seat. So one can hardly take Khvostov’s approval as ambassador to USA for a cancellation of the travel ban, as believed by the official Minsk, which agreed to welcome OSCE mission back in response. Khvostov’s successor at the FM’s post will seemingly be Sergei Martynov – ambassador in Belgium and permanent Belarus’ representative in EU and NATO.