The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Visegrad Group and Eastern Partnership countries will meet at Černín Palace in Prague on 5 March 2012 but Belarusian representatives are not to participate in the meeting, press secretary of the Czech MFA Vít Kolář said. In addition to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, the meeting will be attended by special guests – Denmark as the current Presidency of the European Union, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, and the Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, Štefan Füle.
According to the Czech MFA press secretary, they did invite Belarus to take part in the meeting at Deputy Minister level. But probably the seat intended for the Belarusian delegation will remain vacant: Andrey Savinykh, spokesman for the Belarusian foreign ministry, said, «We decided not to take part in this event. We do not intend to go into details.»
As Petr Mareš, the Special Envoy for the Eastern Partnership from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic told reporters in Minsk on February 21, 2012, for the time being Belarusian Foreign Minister Siarhei Martynau was not invited to attend a meeting of the Eastern Partnership foreign ministers. Mr. Mareš did not sound the conditions under which Martynau could participate in the meeting, but he specified: «The both sides know what should be done for that to happen.»
Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the EU countries regretted the decision adopted by the Belarusian Foreign Ministry to recommend to the Ambassador of the European Union and the Ambassador of Poland in Minsk to leave for their countries for consultations. In this regard and in line with the solidarity within and the common position of the European Union, ambassadors of the EU member countries were recalled for consultations.
Belsat
