MINSK. March 12 (Interfax) - Belarus has told the head and the consul of the Polish Consulate General in Grodno to leave Belarus, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.
"In light of Poland's excessive, asymmetric, and destructive response to Belarus's lawful and motivated decision with regard to Consul of the Polish Consulate General in Brest Jerzy Timofiejuk and the disregard for Belarus's relevant requests, based on Article 23 and Article 55 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the Polish side has been notified that the presence of the head and consul of the Polish Consulate General in Grodno in Belarusian territory is unwarranted. The Polish side has been presented with a note proposing that said persons leave the Republic of Belarus's territory within 48 hours," the Foreign Ministry said.
"Belarus's principled position that war criminals cannot be glorified and that the genocide of the Belarusian people cannot be justified will remain unchanged. The same concerns other constant principles of interstate relations, such as the unacceptability of violations of national law and the need to work within the framework of the Vienna conventions on diplomatic and consular relations," the ministry said.
Polish Charge d'Affaires ad interim to Belarus Marcin Wojciechowski was summoned to the Belarusian Foreign Ministry on March 11 to be presented with the note.
As reported earlier, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry expressed strong protest to Wojciechowski on March 9, 2021, over Polish Consul in Brest Timofiejuk's participation in an unofficial event commemorating the so-called "cursed soldiers" in Brest on February 28, 2021, attended by representatives of nongovernmental and youth organizations associated with Poland.
Wojciechowski was also presented with a note saying that Consul Timofeijuk should leave Belarus. In response to this, Warsaw declared a Belarusian diplomat persona non grata.
In the wake of said event in Brest, the city prosecutor's office opened a criminal case on a count of glorification of war criminals (Belarusian Criminal Code Article 130, Part 3), and a co-founder of the local Polish school was detained. The Brest regional prosecutor's office also proposed officially that the regional administration tighten control over organizations providing cultural and educational services.
Romuald Rajs, nicknamed Bury, is a Polish officer who was executed for war crimes in 1949. He is responsible for murdering 79 ethnic Belarusians in eastern Poland in 1946, which was later recognized as an act of genocide. Rajs is a figure glorified by some Polish radicals. His de facto clearance by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance caused a diplomatic row between Belarus and Poland in 2019. Minsk demanded official explanations from Warsaw, and the Polish ambassador was summoned to the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, which insisted that "criminals like Bury" can never be vindicated.