A senior official of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe has cancelled a visit to Belarus.

The OSCE said in a statement that its representative on media freedom, Freimut Duve, had been due to meet independent and state-employed journalists in Belarus this week, but had cancelled the visit after a senior aide was denied a visa.

The statement said Mr Duve would instead invite independent journalists from Belarus to a meeting in Vienna. The OSCE last week rejected allegations by the Belarussian authorities that its training of local monitors for the presidential elections due in September amounted to training spies. Meanwhile, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, EBRD, has said it may suspend Belarus' access to its funds unless the elections were fair.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service