The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, Vladimir Makei, publicly refused to accredit the TASS news agency, whose founder is the Russian government, for correspondents who are Belarusian citizens.
He did this today in Moscow during a joint press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov after he was approached by a TASS representative, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We have decided to accredit citizens of those states where these media outlets are registered in Belarus. I will be frank, in the past, in practice it turned out that a number of media outlets, mainly Western ones, accredited government opponents as their journalists. This was not an objective presentation of information, as required by the laws of journalism, but ideologically charged propaganda material,” Mackay said.
He emphasized that of the 150 foreign journalists accredited in Belarus, approximately half are Russian citizens.
“As for the TASS news agency, we have accredited one representative. If you send Russian citizens to Minsk, they will be accredited within a few hours. As for the people you propose, unfortunately, in our opinion, they do not quite meet the criteria of journalists.
Lately, TASS sometimes makes such catchy headlines regarding Belarus, which in their emotional overtones surpass even Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe. We all need to stop and draw conclusions,” said Makey.
At the same time, during his opening remarks at the same press conference, he especially thanked the Russian media for supporting his country.
“I would like to especially note the latest events around Belarus and Russia clearly demonstrate the presence of common centers, strategies and tools for waging information warfare against both countries. For foreign ill-wishers, we have long been a real Union State in the understanding of our community and unity.
In this regard, we are grateful for the assistance provided by the Russian side in the information sphere. Many federal and regional Russian media platforms stood up for Belarus, if we mention the extreme event with this plane. They operated exclusively with facts and showed professionalism and solidarity,” said Makey.