Discussions on possible accreditation of Belsat TV are still ahead, Polish foreign minister says

Mr. Waszczykows­ki said “not yet” when asked by a Bela­PAN cor­re­spon­dent whether the issue had been raised at his talks with Mr. Makey.
Messrs. Waszczykows­ki and Makey were expect­ed to con­tin­ue their talks after the news con­fer­ence.
One day before Mr. Waszczykowski’s two-day vis­it to Belarus, Bel­sat TV, a War­saw-based Belaru­sian-speak­ing tele­vi­sion chan­nel, sub­mit­ted a new appli­ca­tion for accred­i­ta­tion to the Belaru­sian for­eign min­istry.
As Alyak­sey Min­chonak, a spokesper­son for the chan­nel, told Bela­PAN,
this time Bel­sat TV applied to the for­eign min­istry for grant­i­ng media accred­i­ta­tion to sev­en of the satel­lite chan­nel’s reporters. On the pre­vi­ous three occa­sions, Bel­sat TV sought accred­i­ta­tion for its news bureau, but the appli­ca­tions were pre­dictably reject­ed. The for­eign min­istry kept explain­ing that jour­nal­ists had vio­lat­ed Belaru­sian laws while work­ing for the chan­nel.
While lay­ing wreaths at the Kura­p­aty Stal­in-era mas­sacre site out­side Min­sk ear­li­er on Tues­day, Mr. Waszczykows­ki said that Poland would like all media out­lets to work in Belarus on an equal foot­ing. He said he would raise the issue of Bel­sat TV dur­ing his talks in Min­sk.
Bel­sat TV start­ed broad­cast­ing on Decem­ber 10, 2007 under an agree­ment between Pol­ish Pub­lic Tele­vi­sion (TVP) and the Pol­ish for­eign min­istry.
The chan­nel describes its mis­sion as pro­vid­ing “accu­rate and inde­pen­dent cov­er­age of events in Belarus, Europe and the rest of the world.”