February 19, Pozirk. The Belarusian foreign ministry has expressed disappointment with the US diplomatic mission not issuing a visa for Belarusian Foreign Minister Maksim Ryžankoŭ to travel to Washington for the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace scheduled for February 19.
“The Belarusian side promptly informed the organizers of the event that our country would be represented by Foreign Minister Maksim Ryžankoŭ by the decision of the head of state,” the ministry said in a comment to BelTA on Thursday evening. “All necessary notifications were sent to US protocol services in accordance with established procedure, visa documents were submitted in good time. However, despite the completion of all required procedures on our side, visas were not granted to our delegation.”
“In this situation a legitimate question arises: what peace and what consistency can one talk about if even basic formalities for our participation were not observed by the organizers?”
The ministry stressed that the “initial invitation to take part in the Board of Peace meeting from the US president was sent to the head of the Belarusian state.” “Further comments are unnecessary,” the ministry concluded
Instead of travelling to Washington, Maksim Ryžankoŭ took part in a literary evening in Minsk on the occasion of International Mother Language Day and Year of Belarusian Woman.
Alaksandar Łukašenka himself was invited to the first meeting of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, but the ruler’s spokeswoman Natalla Ejsmant said on February 11 that that Foreign Minister Maksim Ryžankoŭ would represent Belarus.
She explained that the invitation had been sent at short notice and complained about the EU’s sanctions banning Belarusian carriers from its airspace.
On February 26, at a meeting with Sergei Glazyev, state secretary of the Union State of Belarus and Russia, Łukašenka said that he was not going to Washington because of the European air traffic restrictions on Belarus. “If you wanted to see me there, you should have resolved the issue so that I could fly there and back comfortably,” he said.
