EU AMBASSADORS TO RETURN TO MINSK ALTOGETHER - LITHUANIAN FORMIN (BNS, 16 April 2012)
VILNIUS, Apr 16, BNS – The European Union's (EU) ambassadors who have been recalled from Minsk will return to the Belarusian capital altogether, Lithuania's Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis said on Monday.
"A meeting of the Political and Security Committee is underway where ambassadors of all EU member-states are discussing and making proposals, however, I can only restate that we will return together just as we all left together. There can be no selection. The EU should remain united," the minister told journalists at the government on Monday.Asked whether Belarus was refusing entry to diplomatic envoys of some specific EU countries, Azubalis replied: "Maybe."
"But I'm saying once again – the EU has always been united in this respect, and it will remain united," he emphasized.
The Lithuanian diplomacy chief refused to speculate on the date of decision to return the ambassadors to Minsk.
"Lithuania will propose first of all discussing the release and rehabilitation of all political prisoners. Pardoning them without rehabilitation means keeping a person with a stain or on the hook," Azubalis added.
In comment on the statements made by Belarusian Ambassador in Vilnius Vladimir Drazhin last week that Lithuania's support to EU sanctions against Belarus jeopardized the transit of Belarusian cargo and large budget revenues, the minister said: "We view them as undue and inadequate."
In the end of February, the EU recalled all of its ambassadors from Belarus for consultations after Minsk decided to expel some of them in protest of the bloc's new sanctions over the human rights situation.
EU foreign ministers last month decided to introduce sanctions against 29 companies owned by three businessmen linked with the regime of Belarus' hard-line President Alexander Lukashenko. Another 12 persons were blacklisted.