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Moscow blasts United States for raising issue of Kozulin's strike at UN Security Council's session

The Russian foreign ministry on Wednesday lashed out at the United States for raising the issue of Aleksandr Kozulin's hunger strike at a closed-door session of the UN Security Council the day before.

While speaking at the session, US envoy William Brencick told colleagues that they should keep an eye on the Belarusian government's lack of freedom of expression, Reuters reported.

Moscow condemned the US move as an attempt "to turn the Security Council into a platform for discussing issues dictated by US home policy interests." "We believe that the Council should consider only the issues falling within its jurisdiction under the UN Charter and representing a threat to international peace and security," the statement said.

The Russian foreign office noted that the discussion of human rights issues was a prerogative of other UN organizations, in particular the Human Rights Council established earlier this year.

"Moscow is concerned that the American delegation violated the UN Security Council's existing procedures. In this context, we drew the attention of W.Burns, the US ambassador in Moscow, to the above-mentioned abnormal situation and expressed hope that the US delegation would refrain from using similar methods in its work in the UN Security Council in the future," the statement said.

The Belarusian foreign ministry's spokesman on Wednesday described the US move as "no more than a propaganda trick intended for the media."

Dr. Kozulin, a former presidential candidate sentenced to more than five years in prison on what many view as politically-motivated charges, refused food between October 20 and December 11 to protest what he called Aleksandr Lukashenko's illegal reelection for a third term this past March and attract the international community's attention to the situation in Belarus. In particular, he wanted the subject put on the UN Security Council's agenda. //BelaPAN