Wed, August 08, 2012
Belarus said on August 8 it was withdrawing its remaining embassy staff from Sweden in a rift over a pro-democracy stunt involving an air drop of teddy bears on Belarus and told Stockholm to take similar action with its diplomats in Minsk.
A foreign ministry statement said it was not severing relations with Sweden. But the move marked an escalation in the dispute and looked certain to worsen already strained relations between the European Union and the former Soviet republic.
Belarus expelled Sweden's ambassador on August 3 following the July 4 escapade in which hundreds of toy bears bearing pro-democracy messages were parachuted into the hardline former Soviet republic from a light aircraft chartered by a Swedish public relations firm.
(Agencies)
