Belarussian President Lukashenko refused an entry visa to the Czech Republic
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko has been refused an entry visa to the Czech Republic in view of attending the upcoming NATO summit in Prague. The Czech foreign ministry announced on Friday that the move was not directed against the people of Belarus but against the country's authoritarian leader. The rest of the Belarussian delegation have been granted entry visas.
The Foreign Ministry's decision comes less than 24 hours after President Lukashenko threatened to break off diplomatic ties with Prague if Czech officials thwarted his decision to attend the NATO summit. His high powered statements about allowing thousands of illegal immigrants and drugs to cross into Europe, thus appear to have been highly counterproductive.
The Czech Foreign Ministry, which began examining the visa requests shortly after receiving a report that a Belarus opposition leader was arrested in Minsk, faced the dilemma of wanting to express its dissatisfaction with human rights violations in Belarus while not isolating the country any further. Although President Lukashenko has described NATO as a terrible monster and publicly opposed its expansion eastward, Belarus cooperates with the Western military alliance through the Partnership for Peace programme. As such the Belarus delegation is entitled to attend a meeting of the 46 Euro Atlantic Partnership Council nations to be held next Friday.
Although it was up to the Czech Foreign Ministry to make a decision on the sensitive matter of granting President Lukashenko an entry visa to the Czech Republic, NATO officials made it abundantly clear that the politician described as the last European dictator would not be welcome at the summit.
