UPDATE 1-Belarus seeks new reduction in U.S. embassy staff

(adds details, no American comment)

By Andrei Makhovsky

MINSK, March 31 (Reuters) - Ex-Soviet Belarus, locked in a diplomatic row over sanctions and human rights with Washington, has asked for a second reduction in staffing at the U.S. embassy in Minsk, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

The U.S. ambassador left Belarus this month at the urging of authorities angry at what they saw as new sanctions on oil products firm Belneftekhim. Nearly 50 percent of U.S. embassy staff also left, leaving 17 people at the Minsk facility.

The Foreign Ministry, in a note delivered to the U.S. charge d'affaires, said the U.S. measures had obliged them to reduce staff at the Belarus embassy in Washington and it demanded equivalent cuts at the U.S. embassy in Minsk.

"Given the repeated U.S. refusal to rescind new measures against Belneftekhim and the consistent U.S. line on reducing contacts. ... Belarus has decided to further reduce the size of its embassy in Washington," the ministry said on its Web site, without specifying the number of people involved.

"It is being proposed that the U.S. side reduce the size of its embassy staff by the same numbers and within the same deadlines," it said.

Neither the U.S. embassy in Minsk nor the State Department in Washington offered any immediate comment.

The United States and European Union have long imposed sanctions on Belarus, including an entry ban on President Alexander Lukashenko over human rights concerns. Washington has called Belarus the "last dictatorship in Europe".