The State Department on Thursday ordered Belarus to close its embassy in Washington and its consulate in New York and said it will shut down the U.S. Embassy in the Belarusian capital, according to ap. In a new escalation of a diplomatic dispute, Belarus has been given until May 16 to withdraw its six diplomats at the two missions and the American embassy in Minsk will cease operations as early as Friday, officials told the Associated Press. The move is just a step short of severing diplomatic relations and is the latest in a series of tit-for-tat exchanges with the former Soviet republic. The officials said Belarus was notified of the decision in simultaneous meetings between U.S. and Belarusian diplomats in Washington and Minsk. They spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement expected later Thursday. Closing a U.S. embassy abroad is extremely rare and usually occurs only in conflict zones or in anticipation of instability, the officials said. It was not immediately clear when the United States had last shut down an embassy for purely political reasons. The United States is one of the fiercest critics of Belarus' authoritarian president, Alexsander Lukashenko, and relations have deteriorated notably this year amid pressure from Washington for Belarus to release political prisoners or face punitive sanctions. Belarus on Wednesday ordered most of the U.S. Embassy staff in Minsk to leave the country in 72 hours. The U.S. ambassador left Minsk in March after Belarus pulled its ambassador from Washington. The U.S. embassy in Minsk, which had 35 diplomats at the beginning of the year, was being forced to cut its staff to four. The officials said the mission would not be able to function with such a small number of personnel.
