BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
07/03/2008
Belarus tells U.S. ambassador to leave country
The Associated Press
MINSK, Belarus: The Belarussian Foreign Ministry told the U.S. ambassador on Friday to leave the country and recalled its own ambassador from Washington over economic sanctions imposed by the United States on the former Soviet nation last year.
The State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, told reporters that Ambassador Karen Stewart had not been formally expelled.
"The Belarussian government has suggested - I think that's the polite phrase - that she return to the United States for consultations," he said, adding that Stewart would stay in Minsk while the situation was reviewed.
"If the Belarussian government wishes to shoot itself in the foot, they're welcome to do so," Casey said.
The Belarussian Foreign Ministry said its demand that the nvoy leave had been prompted by U.S. sanctions imposed last fall against Belarus's state-controlled oil-processing and chemicals company, Belneftekhim. Washington froze the company's assets and barred U.S. companies from doing business with it.
The Foreign Ministry in Minsk said that Belarus had warned the United States in advance that its response to the sanctions would be "harsh."
A spokesman for President George W. Bush called the move Friday unjustified and said it "only takes them further away from Europe and the rest of the world."
"It is unfortunate that Belarus continues its repressive actions against its own citizens, and President Bush and the United States will continue to stand with the people of Belarus as they seek to live in freedom," said a Bush spokesman, Gordon Johndroe.
Washington also has slapped travel restrictions on Belarus's authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, and members of his inner circle, as well as financial sanctions against Belarussian authorities over their crackdown on opposition and free media.
The United States and the European Union, which also introduced economic and travel sanctions against Belarus, have made clear that Lukashenko must free political prisoners and allow more democratic freedoms before sanctions can be lifted and relations normalized.
Lukashenko cast the release of several opposition activists this year as a good-will gesture to the West.
The U.S. State Department welcomed the releases of opposition activists as positive steps, but urged Lukashenko to free another opposition leader, Alexander Kozulin, who challenged Lukashenko in the 2006 presidential election, as a condition to start a dialogue on normalizing ties. Belarussian authorities allowed Kozulin to attend his wife's funeral, but then put him back behind bars.
Source:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/07/europe/belarus.php
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