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Return of Belarusian diplomats to Sweden depends on several factors, says Foreign Minister Makey

 

The return of Belarusian diplomats to Sweden depends on several factors, Belarusian Foreign Minister Uladzimir Makey told reporters on Thursday.

“This issue should be viewed within a context,” Mr. Makey said. “The system of the foreign ministry is being optimized at the moment. On the other hand, we’ll take the state of relations [with Europe] in general and with the specific country [Sweden] in particular into account.”

This past April, the Belarusian foreign ministry agreed to grant accreditation to Sweden’s charge d’affaires months after a diplomatic row that led to the closure of the Swedish embassy in Minsk.

"The Belarusian side proceeds from the fact that the activity of the Swedish diplomat in Belarus will be implemented in full compliance with the provisions of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and will be aimed at fulfilling the significant potential of two-way economic cooperation, developing humanitarian, people-to-people contacts and cooperation in the areas of environment and technical aid," said Maryya Vanshyna, deputy head of the ministry’s Information Office.

The Swedish embassy in Minsk and the Belarusian embassy in Stockholm were closed in August 2012 amid a diplomatic row that followed the expulsion of Swedish Ambassador Stefan Eriksson.

Mr. Eriksson was expelled from Belarus a few weeks after a July 4, 2012 incident in which two representatives of Sweden`s ad agency Studio Total illegally flew a small plane from Lithuania to Belarus and dropped hundreds of teddy bears containing pro-human rights messages on the Belarusian territory.

Alyaksandr Lukashenka later denied a link between the expulsion of the ambassador and the toy drop.

The Belarusian foreign ministry announced on August 3 that the Belarusian authorities had denied an accreditation extension to Mr. Eriksson.

"He has worked in Belarus for about seven years, which is a long period," explained Andrey Savinykh, spokesman for the Belarusian foreign ministry. "However, all his activities were aimed at destroying Belarusian-Swedish relations, not at strengthening them." //BelaPAN