Diplomat: Ambassadors are unlikely to return next week
The problem is the Belarusian Ambassadors to Warsaw and Brussels have not returned yet.
Alyaksandr Lukashenka will pronounce “a message for the Parliament and people” next week, on April 19. Besides MPs, foreign ambassadors including the EU Ambassadors are always invited to the Oval Hall. The Belarusians Foreign Office sends the invitations. Euroradio has tried to find out whether the Ambassadors are going to be invited to the President, or, in other words, to return.
According to head of the Ministry’s press service Andrei Savinyh, ambassadors are usually contacted two weeks before the state leader’s speech. However, the representative of the Foreign Office does not know whether invitations to Lukashenka’s message have been sent to European countries’ representative offices this time.
Andrei Savinyh: “They used to invite them, it is necessary to check the report, but the invitations are not obligatory anyway”.
Even is the information is sent to the EU Embassies, the Ambassadors’ absence from Minsk will not affect the number of people in the diplomatic box in the Oval Hall.
Andrei Savinyh: “If an ambassador is absent, there is always a chargé d'affaires pro tempore. They may be invited instead of ambassadors. So, this is not a problem”.
Savinyh says that it is okay that only a week is left until the state leader’s speech. The head of the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also commented on the possible terms of the return of the EU Ambassadors to Minsk.
Andrei Savinyh: “Just write: “The Ministry of Internal Affairs does not comment on the terms of the Ambassadors’ return to Minsk at the moment”.
Meanwhile, information about the “coordinated” return of all the European Ambassadors to Minsk next week (right before the Belarusian leader’s speech in the Oval Hall) appeared on April 4.
Spokesman for the Polish Embassy to Belarus Pawel Marczuk is skeptical about the possible return of Ambassador Leszek Szerepka to Minsk by April 19.
Pawel Marczuk: “The probability of their return (the Ambassadors’ return to Minsk next week - Euroradio) is the same as today, yesterday or the day before yesterday. It is small”.
He has explained to Euroradio why he would not expect Leszek Szerepka’s quick return.
Pawel Marczuk: “Everyone is waiting for the Belarusian Ambassadors to return to Warsaw and Brussels”.
The Polish diplomat has explained that Belarus should make the first technical step on the way to the European Ambassadors’ return. The Belarusian Ambassadors should return to work first. Then the Polish and EU Ambassadors will acquire a technical possibility to return.
The European Union claims that the Ambassadors will only return together. Thus, the return is impossible at the moment.
