"The question is not clear yet. The corresponding services of our ministry are now working on it", Zafirakos said.
RIA Novosti learnt on Friday from the Sport and Tourism Ministry of Belarus that its Foreign Ministry has not yet got the official papers on the refusal of visa to Sport Minister Yuri Sivakov. He is going to lead the Belarussian delegation at the Olympics.
"Yuri Sivakov is going to the Greek Olympics as a member of the team and, in this case, visa plays no role. He only needs accreditation, which he has", said Anatoli Artemyev, press secretary of the Belarussian Sport and Tourism Ministry. According to him, Sivakov is to go to Athens on August 12.
Earlier, some Western media said, referring to the Greek Foreign Ministry, that the issue of entry visa to Greece was denied to Sivakov.
"The spreading of such rumour on the eve of such an important international event as the Olympic Games is impermissible", Ruslan Yesin, deputy head of the information board of the Belarussian Foreign Ministry, told RIA Novosti. "The position of Minsk is that the Belarussian team has been filed for the Olympic Games and it will take part", he noted.
Fifty nine Belarussian athletes from 22 sports have been filed. At the last Olympic Games in Sydney Belarus won 17 medals (3 gold, 3 silver, 11 bronze).
Commenting on the statement of the Belarussian Sport and Tourism Ministry that the Belarussian minister needs no visa because he has the Olympic accreditation, the Greek diplomat noted: "It is the opinion of the Belarussian side. Anywhere, the Foreign Ministry of Greece will take a decision".
Yuri Sivakov, holding the post of the interior minister before last January, is called "one of the key figures" in the special report of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in connection with the disappearing of people in Belarus.
On Friday The Netherlands, the EU chair country, published a statement, in which the presence of the Belarussian minister at the Olympic Games is called wholly "out of place" and urged his keeping away from the momentous sport event.
