MOSCOW, March 18 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Foreign Ministry is working to clear up the situation around the reported detention in Belarus of three Russians invited to the country by opposition forces to observe elections, the ministry said Saturday.
"The ministry is trying to contact the Russian embassy in Minsk," it said.
"At 6 a.m. they were taken to a railroad police station in Gomel," Sergei Alfer, deputy head of Belarus' United Civil Party, said. "It was reported that they would be let go, but we have been unable to contact them yet."
A deputy head of the Yabloko party, Sergei Mitrokhin, said representatives of his party and the Our Choice movement had been detained in Gomel. He also said representatives of the Union of Right Forces had been detained but released later.
The Belarusian Interior Ministry said no Russians had been detained in the city of Gomel.
"The information has not been confirmed. No one has been detained in Gomel," a ministry spokesman said.
