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Belarusians absent from Eastern Partnership meeting in Prague

No representatives of Belarus arrived in Prague to attend a March 5 meeting of the foreign ministers of the Visegrad Group and Eastern Partnership countries, Vit Kolar, spokesman for the Czech foreign ministry, told BelaPAN.

Mr. Kolar said that Belarus had been invited to send a deputy foreign minister to the meeting. "There will be a free chair at the meeting, unfortunately," he said.

When reached by BelaPAN, Andrey Savinykh, spokesman for the Belarusian foreign ministry, said, "We decided not to take part in this event. We do not intend to go into details."

The Czech foreign ministry said that the meeting was to be attended by Catherine Ashton, the European Union's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, and Stefan Fule, the commissioner for enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy.

Speaking to reporters in Minsk on February 21, a visiting representative of the Czech foreign ministry said that Belarusian Foreign Minister Syarhey Martynaw had not been invited so far to attend the March 5 meeting.

Ambassador Petr Mares, who is the ministry's special envoy for Eastern Partnership, said that Mr. Martynaw could yet be invited to the event but did not elaborate. "Both sides know what must be done for this to happen," he added.

Relations between the European Union and Belarus were further strained on February 28, after the Belarusian foreign ministry "recommended” that the head of the EU delegation to Belarus and the ambassador of Poland to Belarus return to their capitals for consultations, while simultaneously recalling the country's permanent representative in Brussels and ambassador in Warsaw.

The decision was announced one day after the EU imposed travel bans and asset freezes on new Belarusian officials over alleged human rights violations.

All EU ambassadors have left Belarus since "in expression of solidarity and unity.”