Foreign ministry: No agreement yet on distribution of Polish TV channel in Belarus
The Belarusian foreign ministry's spokesperson indicated on Thursday that Minsk had not yet agreed to make Poland's television channel Polonia Kultura available to Belarusian cable TV subscribers.
Asked to comment on a recent statement by Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski that an agreement had been reached on the distribution of the channel in Belarus, Dzmitry Mironchyk said, "I just recently provided exhaustive comment on the matter of Polish television channels' distribution in reply to a question from tut.by. There was no such word as 'agreement' in my reply but I did give explanations."
Mr. Mironchyk told tut.by that Belarus would study Poland's request for allowing its television channel to be available to Belarusian viewers. "This issue does not quite fall within the jurisdiction of the foreign ministry: it involves a number of technical aspects and legal niceties connected with the access of foreign media outlets to the Belarusian information market. All of them require serious examination, including with consideration for the principle of reciprocity."
Poland earlier announced plans to cut funding for Belsat TV, a Warsaw-based Belarusian-language channel. At the same time, it said that it was in talks with the Belarusian authorities about the distribution of a Polish channel in Belarus.
Asked to comment on a recent statement by Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski that an agreement had been reached on the distribution of the channel in Belarus, Dzmitry Mironchyk said, "I just recently provided exhaustive comment on the matter of Polish television channels' distribution in reply to a question from tut.by. There was no such word as 'agreement' in my reply but I did give explanations."
Mr. Mironchyk told tut.by that Belarus would study Poland's request for allowing its television channel to be available to Belarusian viewers. "This issue does not quite fall within the jurisdiction of the foreign ministry: it involves a number of technical aspects and legal niceties connected with the access of foreign media outlets to the Belarusian information market. All of them require serious examination, including with consideration for the principle of reciprocity."
Poland earlier announced plans to cut funding for Belsat TV, a Warsaw-based Belarusian-language channel. At the same time, it said that it was in talks with the Belarusian authorities about the distribution of a Polish channel in Belarus.