BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
21/03/2008
Russian PM calls on U.S. to ease pressure on Belarus
MINSK (Reuters) - Russia's prime minister on Friday called on the United States to ease its pressure on Belarus, and vowed support for the ex-Soviet country's president.
Belarus is involved in a diplomatic spat with the United States, which calls the country the "last dictatorship in Europe" and has imposed a travel ban on President Alexander Lukashenko over Minsk's detention of an opposition politician.
"The Russian Federation thinks this is a politicized step. We call on Washington to rethink its line on Belarus," Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov told Lukashenko at a news conference for an economic forum.
U.S. ambassador Karen Stewart left Minsk temporarily last week after two requests for her departure over financial sanctions placed by Washington on a Belarusian state company.
Stewart said on Tuesday Washington would only hold talks on easing sanctions if Belarus released its most prominent political detainee, Alexander Kozulin, who ran against Lukashenko in the 2006 vote that kept him in power.
Belarus on Thursday suggested Stewart would not be allowed back to Minsk until financial sanctions imposed on the state oil products company Belneftekhim were lifted.
On Friday Belarusian Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky said his country had no interest in a confrontation with the United States, nor in a worsening of relations.
"The Belarusian side does not want an escalation of tensions with the U.S.A., and what is more, it does not want diplomatic complications," Sidorsky said.
He also said the sanctions violated multilateral and bilateral agreements between Belarus, the European Union and the United States on the normalization of relations.
"Belarus has taken steps to normalize relations with the U.S. and EU. The additional measures taken against Belneftekhim break the agreed-upon structures," Sidorsky said.
(Reporting by Andrei Makhovsky; Writing by Chris Baldwin; Editing by Giles Elgood)
Source:
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSL2158783720080321
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