Belarus Revokes U.S. Ambassador’s Appointment in Retaliatory Move to Sanctions

MOSCOW—Belarus announced retaliatory action from Washington, which include rescinding its consent of the appointment of the U.S. ambassador, in response to the newest U.S. sanctions on the routine of the country’s authoritarian chief, Alexander Lukashenko.

“In modern several years, our countries have come a extensive way in bringing diplomatic relations to a extra or less suitable level, so it is a pity that the impudent and brazenly hostile actions of the American side…destroyed the achievements of their predecessors,” Belarus’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Anatoly Glaz, claimed in remarks posted Wednesday on the ministry’s web-site.

His remarks arrived two times after the Biden administration announced steps targeting vital areas of Belarus’s economic system, which include its protection marketplace and lucrative potash fertilizer sector. U.S. Secretary of Condition Antony Blinken claimed the measures were in response to the “continued flagrant disregard for human legal rights and Belarus’s failure to comply with its obligations less than international human-legal rights law.”

The U.K. and Canada also announced extra money sanctions on Monday to pressure Mr. Lukashenko to resign. The Belarusian chief introduced an often-violent crackdown on protesters looking for his removal adhering to a presidential election very last summer months that his opponents and Western leaders say was rigged.

Mr. Glaz claimed Belarus’s countermeasures integrated revoking the appointment of Julie Fisher, who was sworn in as the U.S. ambassador to Minsk very last December but hasn’t nevertheless arrived to presume her position. He also advised that the U.S. Embassy in Minsk decrease its personnel to five persons by Sept. 1 and suspended negotiations on new assignments, systems and grants with the U.S. government.