Ambassador of Sweden Stephan Ericsson expelled from Belarus
The Embassy of Sweden in Belarus confirmed
that the Swedish Ambassador to Belarus Stephan Ericsson had been expelled from
Belarus and is in Sweden now.
The press-secretary of the Belarusian MFA Andrei Savinykh stated: “I can say it
for sure that he hasn’t been sent out and will be able to give a more detailed
explanation in some 40 minutes”.
According to unconfirmed information, the Belarusian Ambassador has left Sweden too.
“We said that a new ambassador of Belarus
to Sweden
is unwelcome and asked two other Belarusian diplomats to leave the country”,
Carl Bildt, the Foreign Minister of Sweden, wrote on his Twitter account.
Mr. Ericsson is well-known for his knowledge of the Belarusian language (which
some Belarusian officials cannot boast of), democratic views and support to
Belarusian culture. His expulsion was preceded by a denigrating publication in the
largest state-owned newspaper “Sovetskaya Belorussiya”.
