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Minsk continues to insist on return of Tatsyana Kazyra

Minsk continues to insist on the return of 16-year-old Tatsyana Kazyra from the United States, Andrey Papow, spokesman for the Belarusian foreign ministry, told BelaPAN.

"We are taking the position repeatedly voiced in Minsk and through representatives of our embassy in Washington that it is in the interests of the girl to return to the Republic of Belarus, and we are absolutely sure about it," Mr. Papow said.

Ms. Kazyra failed to join a group of 24 other Belarusian children for a flight back home this past August. The girl, who has been visiting a host family in Petaluma, a city some 35 miles north of San Francisco, for nine summers, applied for an extension of her visitor status.

Officials of the Chernobyl Children’s Project urged the Belarusian girl to return home and Belarusian diplomats visited her in Petaluma. Each time, she repeated her desire to stay and insisted that she has the blessing of her legal guardian, her grandmother.

The girl's US immigration attorney last week offered a compromise. Christopher A. Kerosky said that Ms. Kazyra should seek a student visa to study in the United States, apologize publicly to her government, participate in efforts to raise public awareness in the United States about Belarusian culture, history and traditions and help raise money for the Chernobyl Children’s Project in the North Bay.

When asked to comment on the attorney's proposals, Mr. Papow said that they did not seem to be "serious enough to meet the serious and long-term interests of the child."

He said that Minsk did not oppose Belarusian children's respite trips abroad. "We do not mind our children continuing recuperation abroad, but we think that the situation that has emerged as a result of the most recent incident clearly shows that there is a serious legal loophole in this sphere. We offer our international partners to eliminate this loophole," Mr. Papow said.

He refused to comment on the report that the Belarusian authorities have suspended foreign trips of Belarusian children traveling abroad on respite vacation under various programs. "In this case, the foreign ministry is not authorized to qualify activities of other governmental agencies that are in charge of this matter," he said.