BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
25/03/2008
US to cut embassy staff in wake of Belarus spying charges
Minsk - The US will cut embassy staff in Belarus to a bare minimum in the wake of spying allegations, the Belapan news agency reported Tuesday. Personnel working in the US legation in the capital Minsk will fall to 17 individuals, State Department department spokesman Jonathan Moore said.
The announcement came two days after state-controlled Belarusian television reported US embassy staff had for months operated a spy ring using Belarusian guards of the embassy as agents.
The US paid the Belarusian guards to provide information on the security situation in the downtown neighbourhood where the embassy building is located, and on potential threats to the premises, according to the report.
The guards were members of a uniformed police detachment placed next to the embassy for security purposes, and nothing illegal had transpired between them and US embassy staff, Moore said.
"We have no spies working in the territory of Belarus," he said. "The Belarusian government was fully informed on the actual duties of the guards."
The Bel-1 television news report identified Kurt Finley, a US embassy staffer employed by the FBI, as the ringleader of the alleged spy ring consisting of ten guards in the pay of the US.
Belarus' KGB "broke" the spy ring by convincing at least one of the guards to inform on his fellow agents, according to the report.
Among equipment provided the guards by US secret services included cameras, binoculars, video cameras, and telephones, according to a KGB statement.
Relations between the US and Belarus, Europe's most authoritarian state, have deteriorated in recent months.
Belarus kicked US ambassador Karen Stewart out of the former Soviet republic last week. The move came in retaliation for US banking sanctions against the Belarusian energy company BelNeftKhim, imposed because of human rights violations by Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko.
Both sides papered over the expulsion, in public calling Stewart's exit "a trip home for consultations."
Finley is be one of the embassy staffers scheduled to go home by March 27 at the latest, so as to reduce staff to 17 persons, according to the report.
The US sanctions against BelNeftKhim struck a blow against Belarusian energy security, as energy-poor Belarus has no alternative to increasingly costly oil and gas supplied by Russia, except for foreign development projects involving BelNeftKhim.
The US shut down processing of US visa for Belarusians earlier this month.
Source:
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