Polish MFA: Ambassadors will return jointly

We would like to return our ambassadors, the sooner the better. But we will return jointly,” Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz said.

“Belarus is not only a problem for Poland but for the whole of the EU,” the deputy foreign minister told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, Monday.

“Our position is clear. We would like to return our ambassadors, the sooner the better. But we will return jointly,” Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz said.

A tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats between Belarus and Polish and EU ambassadors followed renewed sanctions against the Lukashenko regime in February.

President Aleksander Lukashenko released former presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov at the weekend after he was sentenced to five years inprisonment for taking part in protests against what the international community regards as rigged presidential elections in December 2010.

Later on Sunday, Dmitry Bondarenko, who led Sannikov's election campaign, was also released from prison.

Lukashenko, accused in the past of being “Europe's last dictator, said he released the activists as a show of “leniency” to his political opponents.

But Pełczyńska-Nałęcz said that the government in Minsk is still being uncooperative.

“Talks with the authorities in Minsk are difficult and not constructive, especially lately,” she said.