Ten U.S. diplomats told to leave Belarus

MINSK (Reuters) - Ten U.S. diplomats were ordered to leave Belarus within 72 hours on Wednesday, intensifying a dispute over sanctions and human rights in the former Soviet republic.

U.S. charge d'affaires Jonathan Moore, speaking to reporters after being summoned to the Foreign Ministry, said the embassy would abide by orders from Belarussian authorities.

The U.S. State Department called the move unjustified and unwarranted, but gave no hint whether Washington would retaliate.

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, has long been accused of crushing freedom of speech and assembly. He has been barred from both the United States and European Union on allegations he rigged his 2006 re-election.

Moore said he believed new sanctions would be introduced if Belarus did not release all detainees deemed to be political prisoners. "Yes. I believe it will be soon," he said.

Belarussian authorities said Washington had failed to comply with a demand to reduce its embassy's staff, the second this year.

"The Foreign Ministry provided a list of 10 diplomats which must leave the country in the course of 72 hours," Moore said. He said 15 diplomats were now in Minsk.

"We will do everything possible so that the U.S. diplomats leave the country within the required time limit."

The Belarussian Foreign Ministry's Internet site said a note had been issued to Moore about the demand to reduce embassy staff from 17 to six.

The U.S. ambassador left the country last month at the urging of authorities, and another diplomat had also gone.

Denouncing the move as unjustified, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: "We are considering our response to this action."

The United States wants to have a good relationship with Belarus, McCormack told reporters, "but we are not going to do that and sacrifice the principles of pushing for freedom of expression, political freedoms, and other freedoms in Belarus."

He said there were currently just five diplomats at Belarus' embassy in Washington.

PRISONERS, SANCTIONS

U.S. officials have said a resumption of dialogue is possible only if Belarus releases its most prominent detainee, academic Alexander Kozulin, jailed for 5 1/2 years for helping stage mass protests against the president's re-election.

Lukashenko ruled out any release of Kozulin on Tuesday in his annual state of the nation address to parliament.

Kozulin turned down an offer last year to go to Germany for treatment of his ailing wife on the grounds it amounted to going into exile. His wife has since died.

McCormack on Wednesday also repeated a U.S. call for Belarus to release a U.S. citizen, Emanuel Zeltser, who was imprisoned upon arrival in the country last month and charged with fraud. The New York-based lawyer, an emigre from the old Soviet Union, is being held in a Belarus psychiatric hospital.

Belarus has been particularly unhappy about U.S. sanctions against oil products company Belneftekhim.

Last month, it accused Washington of extending punitive measures against the firm, which accounts for about a third of Belarus' foreign currency earnings, and asked U.S. Ambassador Karen Stewart to leave.

Washington denied there had been any such extension of sanctions, just a "clarification."

After quarreling with traditional ally Russia last year over energy prices, Lukashenko tried to improve ties with the West, particularly the European Union.

The United States and the EU denounced the jailing last week of two activists who took part in a January protest on the grounds they had assaulted security forces.

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell in Washington; Writing by Ron Popeski; Editing by Doina Chiacu)