Riga terminated an agreement with Minsk on the permission of a direct railway connection for the transportation of military cargo from Belarus to third countries using Latvian ports. This is stated in the statement of the Ministry of Transport of Latvia.
The ministry noted that the agreement was signed in January 1994, when Latvia had not yet joined the European Union (EU).
“Latvia joined the EU on 1 May 2004 and on 29 March 2004 became a member of NATO. In this regard, Latvia is bound by the legal norms of these international organizations, and the agreement with Belarus does not apply to these norms,” the statement says.
It is also reported that the Latvian state administration is generally reviewing bilateral relations with Russia and Belarus against the backdrop of a Russian special operation to protect civilians in Donbass.
On April 8, the European Union adopted the fifth package of sanctions against Russia. Within its framework, the EU, in particular, banned the transportation of goods by transport of the Russian Federation and Belarus. The Council of the EU stressed that the restrictions do not apply to road transport for humanitarian purposes.
On April 10, it was reported that after the introduction of these restrictions, more than 150 trucks with Russian and Belarusian license plates were not allowed to enter Latvia, Gazeta.ru writes.
In early February, Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatoly Glaz said that Minsk was introducing a ban on rail transit from Lithuania for a group of goods from February 7. He recalled that Lithuania had banned the transit of Belarusian goods through its ports. The Belarusian side has repeatedly offered consultations to resolve issues in the legal field, but Lithuania did not enter into a dialogue.
On January 12, it became known that the Lithuanian government terminated the agreement on rail transit of potash fertilizers of Belarusian production through Belarus.
After Lithuania’s decision, Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko said that the transit of Belarusian potassium was reoriented to Russian ports. According to him, in terms of logistics, the Russian route is less marginal, but Belaruskali will even benefit due to the global price increase.
