Belarus expelled all embassy employees from neighboring Latvia on Monday.
Previously, for the ice hockey world championship in the Latvian capital Riga, the official flags of Belarus were exchanged for the white, red and white variant of the Belarusian opposition.
The background to this is the forced landing of a passenger plane in Minsk.
The Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makej spoke of a "provocative action" and an act of "state vandalism" with regard to the flag exchange by the state agency Belta.
The ambassador of Latvia had to leave the country within 24 hours.
The other employees were given 48 hours.
An employee was allowed to stay in the country for the embassy’s technical service.
Latvia responded immediately and also expelled all Belarus embassy staff.
This will apply until relations between the two countries have normalized.
Authorities in the authoritarian Republic of Belarus landed a Ryanair plane en route from Athens to Vilnius on Sunday. A MiG-29 fighter jet also rose, as the military in Minsk confirmed. According to the Wesna Human Rights Center, the blogger Roman Protassewitsch, who was internationally wanted by Lukashenka and who was arrested in Minsk, was on board the Ryanair plane. The EU unanimously condemned the action and demanded Protassevich's release.
The World Cup is also explosive because it was initially supposed to take place in Latvia and Belarus, but the World Federation IIHF withdrew the role of co-host from the Belarusians in January. Officials said that "safety concerns" were the criterion for exclusion. Shortly before, however, the main sponsors of the World Cup, Skoda and Liqui Moly, had announced their withdrawal if the country of the dictator Alexander Lukashenka were to remain the host.