The Drazdy conflict (sometimes spelled Drozdy) was a July 1998 incident involving the

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

and

diplomats A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internatio ...

from other nations. It began with the leader of Belarus,

Alexander Lukashenko Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko (as transliterated from Russian; also transliterated from Belarusian as Alyaksand(a)r Ryhoravich Lukashenka;, ; rus, Александр Григорьевич Лукашенко, Aleksandr Grigoryevich Luk ...

, declaring the Drazdy Complex as property of the government and shutting it down for repairs. The Drazdy Complex housed several diplomats from various nations, including several Western nations. Though Lukashenko tried to negotiate a situation with Western powers, such as

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

and

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, by appointing Uladzimir Herasimovich for talks, the situation was not solved in time. In protest of the incident, the US temporarily recalled its ambassador, Daniel V. Speckhard, who spent one year back in Washington before returning to Belarus. One of the results of the incident was that the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

issued Lukashenko and approximately 130 other government officials with travel bans that prevented them from traveling to fourteen of the then-fifteen EU states. This also began to lead the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and non-EU states to issue similar bans (the United States has an exemption for visits to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

headquarters in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, New York by the banned officials). According to

ITAR-TASS The Russian News Agency TASS (russian: Информацио́нное аге́нтство Росси́и ТАСС, translit=Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii, or Information agency of Russia), abbreviated TASS (russian: ТАСС, label=none) ...

and BelaPAN, the Drazdy Complex is now used as a residence for the president and the evicted diplomats were given new locations in

Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...

References

External links

U.S. Embassy Minsk Policy Statement on the “Drozdy Dispute”
Retrieved 2009-01-02
Encyclopædia Britannica
Foreign relations of the European Union Foreign relations of Belarus 1998 in Belarus 1998 in international relations Diplomatic incidents Alexander Lukashenko {{EU-stub

See also

References

External links