EU ambassadors denied meeting with political prisoners
Leszek Szerepka, the ambassador of Poland to Belarus said this at a press conference in Minsk on December 22, BelaPAN news agency reports.
"We, as the country holding the EU presidency, sent a note to the MFA on behalf of all ambassadors asking for a meeting with jailed political prisoners", the diplomat said.
He said the note had been sent in August, but the MFA answered only in late September.
"We were refused with an explanation that they were not EU citizens, so we have no grounds to meet with them", Szerepka noted. He did not rule out EU diplomats could appeal to the Belarusian MFA again.
We remind that the Belarusian authorities allowed the then German Ambassador and head of the OSCE delegation to Minsk to visit a former presidential candidate in the 2006 election, Alyaksandr Kazulin, in a penal colony in 2008.
"We, as the country holding the EU presidency, sent a note to the MFA on behalf of all ambassadors asking for a meeting with jailed political prisoners", the diplomat said.
He said the note had been sent in August, but the MFA answered only in late September.
"We were refused with an explanation that they were not EU citizens, so we have no grounds to meet with them", Szerepka noted. He did not rule out EU diplomats could appeal to the Belarusian MFA again.
We remind that the Belarusian authorities allowed the then German Ambassador and head of the OSCE delegation to Minsk to visit a former presidential candidate in the 2006 election, Alyaksandr Kazulin, in a penal colony in 2008.