Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei has died at the age of 64, officials say.

CNN
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Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Vladimir Makei died at the age of 64, the country’s foreign ministry said on Saturday.

“Today, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Vladimir Makei, died suddenly,” the official Facebook account of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says, without specifying the details of the circumstances. foreign minister death.

Makei was born in 1958 in the Grodno region of the Belarusian region. According to his official biography on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he has held this post since August 2012.

According to RIA Novosti, Makei was scheduled to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday.

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko expressed condolences to Makei’s family and friends on Saturday, according to a statement posted on the president’s website.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was “deeply shocked” by the news of his death.

“As head of the Foreign Ministry, he made a great contribution to the further strengthening of Russian-Belarusian relations,” the message says.

“Being an accomplished professional and a sincere patriot of his country, he firmly and effectively defended the interests of the Republic of Belarus on international platforms,” the ministry continued, adding that “this is a heavy, irreparable loss.”