VILNIUS/MINSK – Belarus has made an attempt to detain a car carrying Lithuanian diplomatic mail.
The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry has protested these actions in connection with violations of the Vienna Convention.
According to the Foreign Ministry, Belarusian border guards demanded to remove diplomatic seals and open the car at the Medininkai border pass. Because the Lithuanian diplomatic couriers did not agree to fulfil that demand, the car had to make a turn and go back to the territory of Lithuania.
“The detention of a car carrying diplomatic mail near the state border massively violates the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Belarus has demonstrated once again that the rules of the civilized world don’t exist for this state. It’s a dictatorship that is raging in central Europe,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said.
A Belarusian embassy official was urgently summoned to the Foreign Ministry and a protest note was handed to him.
The Belarusian State Border Guard Committee declined to comment on the situation with the car carrying Lithuanian diplomatic mail.
“The State Border Guard Committee is not commenting on the situation,” State Border Guard Committee spokesman Anton Bychkovsky told Interfax on Juen 4.
According to the Vienna Convention, diplomatic mail cannot be opened or detained and a diplomatic courier in the line of duty is provided with security by the receiving side. He enjoys immunity and cannot be detained or arrested.
