BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

17/03/2008

Belarus Complains To UN About U.S. Sanctions

Belarus has appealed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon over sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department on Belarus's largest petrochemical company, Belnaftakhim, Belapan reported on March 14. Minsk asked Ban to publish "as an official document of the UN General Assembly" a statement that the Belarusian Foreign Ministry made on March 7 in connection with the United States' "additional restrictive measures of an economic nature" against Belnaftakhim. "During a rather long period of time, Belarus took quite a number of consistent and constructive steps for the purpose of normalizing relations with Western countries," the ministry said in the statement. "By ignoring agreements reached earlier, the United States has violated the agreed procedure of actions toward the normalization of the relations." The statement cites the Helsinki Final Act, in the signing of which the United States "pledged to refrain from any act of economic compulsion aimed at subordinating the exercise by other participating states of the rights inherent to their sovereignty [or] its own interests." The Treasury Department has frozen all assets under U.S. jurisdiction belonging to Belnaftakhim and its representatives, and has forbidden Americans from doing business with the company on the grounds that it is controlled by Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. On March 6, the Treasury Department posted on its website a clarification of the sanctions against Belnaftakhim. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs David Kramer told Belapan that the clarification was issued because Washington's "hopes for the release of [imprisoned former presidential candidate Alyaksandr] Kazulin" have not materialized. On March 7, Minsk recalled its ambassador to the United States, Mikhail Khvastou, for consultations and insisted that U.S. Ambassador Karen Stewart leave Belarus temporarily, which she did on March 12 (see "RFE/RL Newsline," March 12 and 13, 2008). AM

Source:

http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2008/03/3-cee/cee-170308.asp

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