Ambassadors from the United States and five European countries left Belarus Tuesday to protest the government's attempt to evict them from a diplomatic compound.
The dispute is the latest sign of Belarus' souring relations with the West and, increasingly, with its onetime allies in the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.On Friday, the government cut water and power supplies to the Drozdy diplomatic compound and had ditches dug inside the compound's gates, which prevented cars from entering.
President Alexander Lukashenko has claimed the diplomatic residences as his property. He has a quarters adjacent to the compound, which houses 22 ambassadors and their families.
It was not immediately known how many envoys remained in the complex after Tuesday's departures.
The envoys say the Minsk government's eviction order violates the Vienna Convention, which designates homes of ambassadors as territory of their countries.
British Ambassador Jessica Mary Pearce told the Belarus' Foreign Ministry that the European Union "objected in the strongest terms to the cutoff of water, electricity and telephone utilities and refusal to allow ambassadors' vehicles to enter the residential complex."
She informed the ministry that Belarus' ambassadors to EU countries would be instructed to return to Minsk "to convey in the strongest terms the disapproval of EU governments of the latest Belarusian actions."
Germany has already asked the Belarusian ambassador to Bonn to return home.
In addition to Pearce and U.S. Ambassador Daniel Speckhard, the ambassadors from France, Greece, Italy and Germany left Tuesday on a flight to Frankfurt, Germany.
Officially, they were recalled by their countries for consultations over the standoff.
Russia has not recalled its ambassador. However, it has sent Boris Berezovsky, a Kremlin emissary responsible for relations with the former Soviet republics, to Minsk to meet with Lukashenko, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
The government has offered the envoys new apartments in downtown Minsk, cottages 20 miles outside Minsk or plots on which to build new residences.