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Belarus’ proposals to reduce diplomatic staff in embassies of Lithuania, Poland mandatory

MINSK, 5 October (BelTA) - The proposals announced by the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to reduce the diplomatic personnel in the Lithuanian and Polish embassies are mandatory, Anatoly Glaz, Head of the Information and Digital Diplomacy Office, Press Secretary of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said as he commented on the statements of the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that they are not going to reduce the staff of their diplomatic mission in Belarus on 3 October, BelTA has learned.

“Maybe due to the fact that Linas Linkevicius [Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania] has fully immersed himself into politics, he has already forgotten some diplomatic terms. It is not difficult for us to explain their meaning. The proposals made by us are exclusively Belarus' sovereign rights and no one is obliged to discuss them, and, in fact, no one was going to discuss them with the Lithuanian side. Moving away from diplomatic casuistry, it means that such proposals are mandatory for the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said Anatoly Glaz.

He explained that the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations provides the state with sufficient instruments of diplomatic influence in such cases. “We will apply them if necessary. In order to free the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs from searching for the necessary documents, I am even ready to quote, for example, Article 11 of the abovementioned document: “In the absence of specific agreement as to the size of the mission, the receiving State may require that the size of a mission be kept within limits considered by it to be reasonable and normal, having regard to circumstances and conditions in the receiving State and to the needs of the particular mission”, the spokesman said.

“So, frankly speaking, it is not clear what is the reason for this statement of the Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs: either it is his poor knowledge of the Convention or his conscious desire to make a sacrifice of their diplomats,” the representative of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

According to him, these comments of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs fully apply to the statement of the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs.
 
“I would like to stress once again that the proposals that we made yesterday are not aimed at worsening relations between our neighboring nations. They are a forced response and are motivated by a special destructive role that the leadership of Poland and Lithuania decided to play in the current situation,” said Anatoly Glaz.

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