News

On 30 March, the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Ažubalis, had a telephone conversation with Foreign Minister of Belarus Sergei Martynov about relevant issues on the OSCE agenda and bilateral issues.

Minister A.Ažubalis called on the Belarusian authorities to release political prisoners and positively assessed activities of the observers who were sent by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to monitor the trials of protesters, arrested in Minsk on 19 December.

During the conversation, Minister A.Ažubalis invited Belarus to search for constructive forms of cooperation with the OSCE, discussed the OSCE Secretary General election and other items on the organization’s agenda.

The Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs reminded his counterpart that Lithuania had not yet received from Belarus a response to Lithuania’s note regarding the environmental impact assessment of the planned Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Belarus. S.Martynov assured that the answer would be given in the short run.

On 14 March, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Evaldas Ignatavičius handed in a note of protest to the Belarusian Ambassador to Lithuania Vladimir Drazhin regarding the claims of Belarusian officials that Lithuania did not object to the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report in accordance with the 1991 United Nations Espoo Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context in regard to the planned construction of the Belarusian NPP.

The note stresses once again that the international Environmental Impact Assessment process of the planned construction of the Belarusian NPP is not complete, as Belarus has not carried out the Environmental Impact Assessment of the planned Belarusian NPP in compliance with the generally accepted international legal norms, has not organized public hearings on this project in Lithuania and bilateral consultations of Lithuania and Belarus in accordance with the provisions of the Espoo Convention.”