VENEZUELA ARMS SHIPMENTS DEMARCHE DELIVERED TO

S E C R E T MINSK 000850 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/05/2017 TAGS: PARM PREL MASS ETTC RS VE BO SUBJECT: VENEZUELA ARMS SHIPMENTS DEMARCHE DELIVERED TO BELARUS REF: STATE 138425 Classified By: Charge Jonathan Moore for reason 1.4 (d). ¶1. (S) On October 2, Ambassador delivered points from reftel to Valentin Rybakov, Foreign Policy Advisor to President Lukashenko. Rybakov noted the points, and responded only by asking if the U.S. Government expresses such concerns to other governments as well, mentioning Russia in particular, or if it singles out Belarus. ¶2. (S) On October 5, Charge delivered same points to Georgiy Kislyak, head of the MFA's Latin America office, Sergey Sergeyev, head of the North America office, and Andrey Rzheussky, Counselor in the North America office. Kislyak said he would take the points into consideration and forward them to Ministry leadership. He also pointed out that Belarus conducts relations with many countries throughout Latin America, and that all cooperation agreements are in accordance with United Nations and other international standards. Moore