Belarus has expelled Sweden's ambassador over his actions to support democracy, Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said on Friday, as the European Union's foreign policy chief said the bloc would consider responding with "appropriate" measures.
The diplomatic dispute flared up after a plane chartered by a Swedish public relations firm dropped hundreds of teddy bears over Belarus on July 4 in a pro-democracy stunt, prompting President Alexander Lukashenko to sack his air defence chief and the head of the border guards.
It took Lukashenko, a former Soviet collective farm manager, weeks to confirm the incident and Stockholm's ambassador appears to have been told to leave soon after the Belarussian leader spoke publicly about the scandal for the first time.
