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Minsk appeals to UN over Washington's sanctions

Minsk has appealed to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, over US sanctions against Belarus’ petrochemical conglomerate Belnaftakhim.

It asked the secretary general to publish "as an official document of the UN General Assembly" a statement that the Belarusian foreign ministry made on March 7 in connection with the United States' "additional restrictive measures of an economic nature" against Belnaftakhim.

It said in the appeal that it might take "harsh" retaliatory steps.

“During a rather long period of time, Belarus took quite a number of consistent and constructive steps for the purpose of normalizing relations with Western countries,” the Belarusian foreign ministry said in the statement. “By ignoring agreements reached earlier, the USA has violated the agreed algorithm of actions toward the normalization of the relations.”

By signing the Helsinki Final Act, the United States, as well as other OSCE participating countries, “pledged to refrain from any act of economic compulsion aimed at subordinating the exercise by other participating states of the rights inherent to their sovereignty to its own interests,” the statement read.

On March 7, the Belarusian foreign ministry recalled Ambassador Mikhail Khvastow from Washington for consultations over the "additional restrictive measures." It recommended that Washington follow suit, but the latter initially refused. Ambassador Karen Stewart left Belarus for consultations on March 12 only.

Mr. Khvastow was recalled one day after the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a statement with regard to the applicability of the financial sanctions imposed by the Department against Belnaftakhim on November 13, 2007 over human rights abuses.

The Reuters news agency quoted a source close to Belarus' government as saying that the statement "allowed for a broad interpretation of a list of firms linked to Belnaftakhim. The Belarusian side viewed that as additional sanctions."

David Kramer, the US assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, told BelaPAN that the clarification had been issued because Washington's "hopes for the release of Dr. Kazulin" had not materialized.