Łukasz Jasina, the spokesman for the Polish foreign ministry, said on Monday that the three diplomats were “two consuls from Grodno and the go-between of the Polish Border Guard in Minsk,” the Reuters news agency reported.
'We are thinking about a good and proper response'
Jasina said: "They have to leave Belarus by the end of the day on Wednesday."He added: "We are thinking about a good and proper response to this."
Jasina told reporters that the Polish consulate in Grodno was "still functioning," state news agency PAP reported.
Wednesday’s move by Belarus was signalled last week and is part of its response to the closure of a key Polish-Belarusian border crossing in Bobrowniki by Poland earlier this month, according to news outlets.
Tensions between Poland and Belarus
The Belarusian foreign ministry said on Friday that Polish trucks would be able to enter and leave Belarus “through Polish-Belarusian crossings only,” meaning they would not be able to use Belarus’ crossings with Lithuania and Latvia, according to officials.
In addition, the Polish Border Guard’s liaison officer has been told to leave Belarus and the number of staff at the Polish Consulate General in Grodno, western Belarus, "should be made equal to the number of staff at the Belarusian Consulate General in Białystok," northeastern Poland, according to the Belarusian foreign ministry.
Jasina said on Friday that Poland's "response will be calm and preceded by careful consideration.”
He added: “We are analysing the situation and will keep the public informed about further decisions. When it comes to this type of response, every scenario is on the table. We have to weigh all the pros and cons, so we’ll make the decision calmly in the immediate future. It’s a matter of the next few days.”
'In the interest of national security'
Last week, Poland announced that, “in the interest of national security,” it was suspending traffic at the Polish-Belarusian border crossing in Bobrowniki from February 10 until further notice.
The move was made after a court in Grodno sentenced Polish-Belarusian journalist and activist Andrzej Poczobut to eight years in “a maximum security penal colony” in what was widely seen as a politically motivated case.
Bobrowniki had recently been the only road border crossing with Belarus in Poland’s northeastern Podlaskie province.
The largest road border crossing, in Kuźnica, was closed in November 2021 until further notice due to a migrant crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border.
At the moment, two Polish-Belarusian border crossings are active, both of them in Poland’s eastern Lubelskie region: the Terespol-Brest crossing for passenger traffic and Kukuryki-Kozlovishche for freight traffic, the PAP news agency reported.
Poland has been an important refuge for opponents of Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, and Warsaw has become one of Kyiv's most steadfast supporters since Belarus' main ally Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, the Reuters news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, Reuters, rp.pl