Ambassador sent to Belarus to end travel

THE Irish ambassador to Belarus is en route to the capital, Minsk, to try to end the travel ban on children affected by the Chernobyl disaster.

Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin said he had asked the ambassador to discuss formal arrangements for the children, 1,000 of whom visit Ireland each year for holidays and medical treatment, following a travel ban imposed on all children last week after a Belarusian teen refused to return home after a summer holiday in the US.

Thousands of Belarusian children affected by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster enjoy foreign holidays funded by the Chernobyl Children’s Project charity.

The project’s chief executive, Adi Roche, described last week’s ban as “shocking news”. The Belarusian authorities sent a draft agreement to Dublin in April of last year but the Irish Government has yet to agree its terms.

Denying charges of delay, a spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday said there were legal problems with the proposal, but that they expect there to be a favourable outcome.

The minister and Ms Roche met in Cork yesterday to discuss the crisis.

Speaking after the meeting the minister said: “I have asked our ambassador to Belarus, who is based in Moscow, to travel to Minsk tomorrow to convey my satisfaction with the traditional, longstanding co-operation with the Belarusian Authorities on the children’s visits to Ireland. I believe also that the Belarusian authorities are equally satisfied.

However, if they feel that a more formal arrangement is required, I would be happy to enter into discussions with them for this purpose at an early date. This will involve close co-operation with the Departments of Health, Justice and the Minister for Children and initial work has already begun to deal with the necessarily complicated legal issues that such an agreement would have to cover, should the need arise.

“I hope to speak with my Belarusian counterpart at the earliest opportunity and have also invited the Belarusian Chargé d’Affaires, who is based in London, to travel to Dublin next Thursday and he has agreed to do so.”

Ms Roche was told about the decision in a phone call on Wednesday from the Belarus embassy in London.

The ban was imposed after the Belarusian government was left embarrassed by the insistence of 16-year-old Tanya Kazyra that she would rather stay with her host family in the United States than return home to Belarus.