Brussels, Jun 1 (IANS): NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that members of Belarus' diplomatic mission to the alliance will have restricted access at its headquarters due to "our assessment of security measures".

"We have decided to restrict the access of Belarusian personnel to the NATO headquarters based on our assessment of security measures at the headquarters," Stoltenberg told reporters on Monday ahead of a NATO Defence and Foreign Ministers meeting here on Tuesday.

Belarus is not a member of NATO, but it, however, has had ties with the military alliance since 1992.

Stoltenberg's remarks came more than a week after Belarusian authorities dispatched a fighter jet to force a Ryanair flight to divert to Minsk, where a dissident journalist who was on board was then arrested along with his girlfriend.

Roman Protasevich, a 26-year-old dissident journalist, and his partner were taken into custody after the landing on May 23, prompting a raft of measures by the European Union, including restricted access to the bloc's airspace for Belarusian carriers.