Israeli Embassy Refutes Belarusian Foreign Ministry

Israel offered to introduce free visas for Belarusian citizens, while recently an official of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry Andrei Giro stated the opposite.

“Maybe our offer would seem new for somebody, but in fact it was voiced by the Israeli side long ago,” the statement of the Israeli Embassy to the Republic of Belarus received by “narodnaya Volya” reads.

“We repeat it now after we were surprised to hear from the head of the Foreign Ministry consular department Andrei Giro during an on-line press-conference at BELTA website on May 29 that the Israeli side hadn’t showed readiness to consider the Belarusian project of issuing free visas to a number of categories of citizens, and hadn’t offered its own variant of an agreement,” the statement of the Embassy reads. “On October 23 last year at a regular meeting with the head of agreements department of the Foreign Ministry of Israel the Belarusian consul it was explained again that Israel does not have experience in issuing visas free of charge on age basis, as offered by Belarus. However, the Israeli Foreign Ministry is ready to study the documents regulating consular agreements of Belarus with other countries where this principle is used. The Belarusian side hasn’t given these documents to the Foreign Ministry of Israel so far”.

But the most important point is that the Israeli Foreign Ministry offered to simplify the situation radically and make all visas free right after receiving the Belarusian project and repeated that at the meeting in October 2007.

And finally about the statement of Mr. Giro that Belarus has simplified issuing visas for Israeli citizens. The facilitations done by the Belarusian side recently, have been the basis of consular services to Belarusian citizens by Israel for many years.