The Belarusian Foreign Ministry also recommended a departure to Brussels for consultations with EU representatives in Belarus.
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Last week, EU foreign ministers agreed on new anti-Belarusian sanctions in response to an incident in which Belarusian authorities forced a commercial flight to Vilnius to land in Vilnius in May and arrested an opposition journalist traveling on the flight. The EU sanctions list now includes 166 people and 15 institutions.
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In addition to calling on its Permanent Representative from Brussels, Belarus has also announced that it is suspending its participation in the European Union’s Eastern Partnership project, which serves to bring the EU closer to the countries of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Apart from Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have so far participated. At the same time, Minsk has begun the process of suspending an agreement with the EU on the admission of deported citizens.
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EU representatives agreed on the first package of current anti-Belarusian sanctions last October after the August Belarusian presidential election. According to the Belarusian authorities, Lukashenko won again, but the EU considers the vote to be rigged and does not recognize the result. He also wants sanctions to prevent human rights abuses in Belarus, including the violent repression of anti-government protests that erupted in the Eastern European country in response to the August elections.
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