WARSAW, December 13 (RIA Novosti, Leonid Sviridov) - A well-known Polish TV journalist was denied entry into Belarus Tuesday.
Agnieszka Romaszewska of public television station TVP has been detained by Belarusian authorities at the Minsk-2 airport, a spokesman for the station said.
Romaszewska holds the official accreditation of a permanent correspondent with the Belarusian Foreign Ministry.
The journalist is now in the neutral zone of the Minsk-2 international airport.
Romaszewska has contacted the Polish Embassy and is waiting for the Polish consul's arrival.
Belarusian border guards earlier tried to send the journalist back to Warsaw, referring to a law on foreigners' stay in the republic, but failed to produce a deportation order.
On December 10, Romaszewska made an attempt to enter Belarus by car but was not allowed into the country either.
Acting spokesman for the Belarusian Foreign Ministry Ruslan Yesin said Romaszewska had been banned from entering Belarus. "The border guards observed border crossing regulations," he said.
This year, the Polish journalist worked for three months as a TVP correspondent in Belarus, covering the conflict surrounding the Union of Poles in Belarus, an organization that represents the Polish minority in the republic and which the government accuses of inciting unrest.
Yesin described the journalist's repeated attempts to enter the country as a provocation and said the ban was not related to her professional activities. The Foreign Ministry did not annul Romaszewska's accreditation and has nothing against her professional activities, the official said.
Earlier, an aide to the Polish prime minister was denied entry into Belarus.
