Czech Diplomat Declared Persona Non Grata and Must Leave Belarus within Three Days

The Belarusian Foreign Ministry announced that the Czech diplomat has been declared persona non grata and must leave Belarus within 72 hours. This was stated by Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ruslan Varankov, BelTA writes.

The official representative of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry emphasized: "As you are already aware, the authorities of the Republic of Poland and the Czech Republic recently, using completely far-fetched and baseless pretexts, asked Belarusian diplomats holding the rank of advisers to leave their countries."

"Today, Chargé d’Affaires of the Czech Republic in Belarus Tomáš Kryl has been summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus. He was informed that a Czech diplomat (adviser rank) has been declared persona non grata as a reciprocal measure and must leave Belarus within 72 hours," the spokesperson remarked.

"We would like to further emphasize that the current situation was caused by years of cultivated bias against Belarus by the Czech authorities," the Foreign Ministry spokesperson continued. "We are forced to respond in accordance with existing diplomatic practice, including in the context of the restrictions previously imposed on the Belarusian Embassy in the Czech Republic."

Also, on September 19, Chargé d’Affaires of the Republic of Poland in Belarus Wojciech Filemonowicz has been summoned to the ministry for a substantive discussion on the current state of Belarus-Poland relations. Details of that conversation will be disclosed later.

"The Belarusian side considers this diplomatic incident to be resolved. Should the situation escalate further, Belarus will respond appropriately. This position has been communicated to Warsaw and Prague," the official representative of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry concluded.