BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

26/07/2005

Speaker of Parliament on Belarus

Poland has expelled another diplomat from neighbouring Belarus in a row over that country's attempts to discredit and intimidate its ethnic Polish community. The row started when the controversial Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko declared the local Polish association illegal and accused Poland of meddling in his country's internal affairs. International organizations have repeatedly slammed Belarus for its human rights violations.

Poland has told a Belarussian diplomat to leave the country within ten days. It's the latest diplomatic expulsion in a series of tit for tat moves after Belarus accused its western neighbour of spying and plotting an uprising. The move is in response to a July expulsion of a Polish consul from the Belarussian capital Minsk. Polish Speaker of Parliament Wlodzimerz Cimoszewicz says that relations with Minsk have really turned sour.

It's estimated that 400,000 ethnic Poles live in Belarus, Poland eastern neighbour. Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz thinks that the fault for deterioration of Polish-Belarussian relations lies entirely on the side of the regime in Minsk.

In March Belarussian President Alexsander Lukashenko angered Warsaw by declaring the Belarus Polish association congress illegal and accused Poland of meddling in its internal affairs. Earlier this month a Polish consul was kicked out of Minsk and accused of spying. But just how far can this diplomatic war go? Piotr Nowina Konopka President of the Robert Schuman Foundation says that closing the Warsaw Embassy in Minsk is a last resort. A move which would sever ties between families on the two sides of the border.

For the time being the Belarusian diplomat has less than two weeks to leave Poland. Observers think that instead of using the proximity of Poland, a new European Union member state, to his advantage, Belarussian president Lukashenko continues to steer an isolationist course, whose consequences might be ominous.

Source:

http://www.radio.com.pl/polonia/article.asp?tId=25493&j=2