"We would once again urge the American side to stop chasing shadows and really start implementing its privileged status as a permanent UN Security Council member. It is a position charged with a special responsibility to maintain international peace and stability," Andrei Popov, the ministry's press secretary, said Wednesday.
At a meeting of the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany at UN headquarters in New York, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, proposed discussing Alexander Kozulin, leader of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party, who was arrested during a protest March 25 against the result of the presidential election March 19.
Popov said Kozulin had ended his hunger strike by the time U.S. representatives tried to raise the issue at the UN.
"That is why, in our opinion, all this commotion raised by the Americans on this issue is nothing more than a propaganda ploy designed for the mass media," he said.
Russia refused to discuss the issue of the jailed Belarusian opposition leader when the United States raised the subject during UN Security Council consultations, diplomatic sources said Wednesday.
Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the UN, said the issue was not on the agenda of the talks, which were expected to focus on Iran's nuclear program, and left the room in protest.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said the intention of a U.S. representative to discuss human rights abuse in Belarus was an attempt to turn the Security Council into a forum to discussing topics dictated by U.S. domestic political considerations.
"Moscow expressed the hope that the U.S. delegation will refrain from using such methods in its work at the UN Security Council in the future," the ministry said, adding that the issue is not within the Security Council's purview.
The March 19 election saw authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko re-elected to a third term.
Kozulin, 50, was convicted on charges of hooliganism, disorderly conduct and refusing to obey law enforcement officers. He was sent to a penal colony in the Vitebsk Region in the north of the republic and in mid-October went on a hunger strike.
The politician said his protest was aimed at attracting international attention to human rights violations in the ex-Soviet republic. During his 53-day hunger strike, which ended Tuesday, he lost over 26 kilograms (57 pounds).
Lukashenko was re-elected with an overwhelming 83% of the vote. Although he has widespread support in his homeland for maintaining relative stability in comparison with some other former Soviet republics, his human rights record has been fiercely criticized by international organizations.
However Russia, which is forming a Union State with Belarus, has urged other countries not to interfere in Belarus' internal affairs.
The opposition and international monitors denounced the election as unfair, and opposition activists staged a five-day sit-in in Minsk's central square.
