The letter with the credentials is still there. Everyone has read it, no one touches it. And it is likely to stay where it is. To prevent the postman from delivering it to the Quirinale, for the necessary approval of President Mattarella. Because the case of Anatoly Glaz, the new ambassador to Italy appointed directly by the last tyrant of Europe, Aleksandr Lukashenko, for Minister Luigi Di Maio it is something more than an embarrassment. It is the worst that could come: the most faithful spokesman of the Belarusian foreign minister, the eternal child prodigy who at 27 was already a diplomatic adviser to the dictator and only a week ago was on all the TVs in the world, justifying the hijacking of the Ryanair flight and the arrest of an inconvenient journalist. “Someone like Glaz cannot be credited as a diplomat”, say from the entourage of Svetlana Tichanovskaja, the opposition leader who fled to Vilnius. “I have information on the fact that the Italian government is considering the credentials – he declares to the site Linkiesta former minister Pavel Latushko, exiled to Poland -. The EU has admitted that Lukashenko is a dictator. And what does Italy do? Do you welcome the appointment of your spokesperson as ambassador? You would be the first in Europe to accept it from an illegitimate government. Do you realize how this would make us feel? ‘
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From shamelessly Belarus. Who is Glaz, 38, a communist and the son of a loyal loyalist of Lukashenko, has been explained in recent months. When in August the dictator rigged the elections and indignant the world, the spokesman Anatoly provided to go on TV and say that in the West we are “stupid, shortsighted and spoiled”. And if the UN condemned the violations of the most elementary rights, it was always Anatoly who mocked “people who have no influence on the real situation” (20 July 2020). Was the EU preparing sanctions for the regime that imprisoned opponents? It was again Anatoly who summoned the Tass agency and threatened: “This blatant ambition of the European bureaucracy will have to stop one day!” (August 17, 2020). The journalists of Bbc e Reuters, Ap e Afp were they thrown out because they had told of the repression? Here is Anatoly’s explanation: “We intervened on the counter-terrorism report” (29 August 2020). And then the attacks in September on the European Lithuania, for welcoming Tichanovskaja. And the expulsion of 43 EU diplomats (“we made them a proposal that could not be refused …”). And the warnings to Estonia, “cynical and hypocritical”. And the disputes with the US, which demanded respect for human rights … He was always watching over the uprisings of the Belarusian revolution, Glaz’s eyes.
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The question of the ambassador has been dragging on for some months now. But now it gets more delicate. Since yesterday, EU airspace has been closed to all Belarusian flights (“pirates of the air!”, Thundered Glaz). And what is happening in Minsk, the foreign ministry says, confirms the need to be cautious. Taking time. And resorting, as already other European countries, to the “temporary suspension” of the approval procedures: a way to make it clear how Glaz – already twice on a mission in Italy – is not really welcome. In a few days in Brussels, at the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council, the 27 will look for a position on Lukashenko: complicated, in the face of countries such as Poland or Lithuania, which would like to end all relations. The Glaz case is in the background. A common line will be found, dislike could be a compromise solution. After all, to be represented in Rome as in Paris or Berlin, Lukashenko will always send a trusted friend. And from some of his friends, God look at us …
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June 5, 2021 (change June 5, 2021 | 22:02)
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