Ambassador of the United States to Belarus | |
---|---|
Пасол Злучаных Штатаў у Беларусі | |
since June 26, 2023 | |
Nominator | The President of the United States |
Appointer | The President with Senate advice and consent |
Inaugural holder | David Heywood Swartz as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary |
Formation | August 11, 1992 |
Website | by |
The United States ambassador to Belarus is the official representative of the president of the United States to the head of state of Belarus.
Until 1991, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic had been a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. During the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic declared independence on August 25, 1991, and renamed itself the Republic of Belarus on September 19, 1991. The United States recognized Belarus on December 26, 1991. An embassy was established in the capital, Minsk, on January 31, 1992, with John Ford as Chargé d’Affaires ad interim. Relations between the United States and Belarus have been continuous since that time.
The U.S. Embassy in Belarus is located in Minsk. Since March 12, 2008, when Ambassador Karen Stewart was formally recalled for consultations, there has been no accredited U.S. Ambassador in Minsk. All but five U.S. diplomats were declared persona non grata on April 30, 2008.
Name | Title | Appointed | Presented credentials | Terminated mission | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
David Heywood Swartz – Career FSO | Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary | August 11, 1992 | September 9, 1992 | January 21, 1994 | |
Kenneth Spencer Yalowitz – Career FSO | September 29, 1994 | November 7, 1994 | July 8, 1997 | ||
Daniel V. Speckhard – Career FSO [1] | August 1, 1997 | September 18, 1997 | August 5, 2000 | ||
Michael G. Kozak – Career Civil Service (non-FSO) | September 15, 2000 | February 22, 2001 | August 8, 2003 | ||
George A. Krol – Career FSO | July 1, 2003 | October 22, 2003 | July 24, 2006 | ||
Karen B. Stewart – Career FSO | August 14, 2006 | October 24, 2006 | March 12, 2008 [2] [3] [4] | ||
Jonathan M. Moore – Career FSO | Chargé d'Affaires ad interim | March 12, 2008 | — [5] | July 7, 2009 | |
Michael Scanlan – Career FSO | July 7, 2009 | — | June 2013 | ||
Ethan A. Goldrich – Career FSO | June 2013 | — | June 30, 2014 | ||
Scott Rauland [6] | June 30, 2014 | — | July 8, 2016 [7] | ||
Robert J. Riley | August 22, 2016 [7] | — | July 17, 2018 [8] | ||
Jenifer H. Moore | August 17, 2018 [9] | — | July 27, 2020 | ||
Jeffrey Giauque [10] | July 27, 2020 | — | December 22, 2020 | ||
Julie D. Fisher – Career FSO | Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary | December 15, 2020 [11] | December 23, 2020 | June 9, 2022 | |
Ruben Harutunian | Chargé d'Affaires ad interim | June 9, 2022 | June 25, 2023 [12] | ||
Peter Kaufmann | Chargé d'Affaires ad interim | June 26, 2023 | Present |
Interstate relations between the United States and Belarus began in 1991 upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union, of which Belarus had been a part. However, the relations have turned sour due to accusations by the United States that Belarus has been violating human rights. Belarus, in turn, has accused the United States of interfering in its internal affairs.
Richard Eugene Hoagland is a career ambassador in the United States Department of State. He was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in State's Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs from 2013-2015. In the summer of 2016, based at the U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan, he was the senior U.S. liaison to the Russian Reconciliation Center at the Russian military base in Latakia, Syria. In 2017 he served as interim U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, the group appointed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to coordinate international peace-making efforts on the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Belarus and Ukraine both are full members of the Baku Initiative and Central European Initiative. In 2020, during the Belarusian protests against president Lukashenko, the relationship between Ukraine and Belarus began to deteriorate, after the Ukrainian government criticized Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko. In the waning days of 2021, the relationship between both countries rapidly deteriorated, culminating in a full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022. Belarus has allowed the stationing of Russian troops and equipment in its territory and its use as a springboard for offensives into northern Ukraine but has denied the presence of Belarusian troops in Ukraine. Even though part of the Russian invasion was launched from Belarus, Ukraine did not break off diplomatic relations with Belarus, but remain frozen. In July 2024, Lukashenko described Ukraine as an enemy.
This is a summary history of diplomatic relations of the United States listed by country. The history of diplomatic relations of the United States began with the appointment of Benjamin Franklin as U.S. Minister to France in 1778, even before the U.S. had won its independence from Great Britain in 1783.