BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

20/04/2009

EU Invites Lukashenko To Key Prague Summit

Combined ReportsBelarussian President Alexander Lukashenko was handed an invitation on Friday for his country to attend an EU summit with former Soviet republics in Prague next month, his foreign minister said.

It was not certain whether Lukashenko would attend the Eastern Partnership summit in Prague himself -- possibly embarrassing EU leaders -- or send someone else. But he has achieved his main aim of thrusting his country back into mainstream European society, an analyst said.

Rome said Friday that Lukashenko would visit Italy later this month, his first official trip to a Western country since the mid-1990s. He will also meet the pope at the Vatican.

Moscow welcomed the EU move. "We are happy that realism has prevailed in Brussels in relation to Belarus," Kremlin spokesman Sergei Prikhodko said, RIA-Novosti reported.

Belarussian Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov said Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg had handed the invitation to the Prague summit to Lukashenko during talks in Minsk.

"The minister turned over to the president an invitation to take part in this summit," Martynov told reporters.

Schwarzenberg said: "The president did not confirm his attendance. He accepted the invitation. It is now for him to decide who will represent Belarus at the summit."

In Rome, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said he would meet Lukashenko in Rome on April 26 and that the Belarussian leader would also see Pope Benedict XVI.

Frattini said he supported inviting Lukashenko to the Prague summit to discuss aid to six former Soviet republics -- the others are Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

Lukashenko and about 40 other officials had been banned entry to the European Union for purportedly rigging his re-election in 2006. The ban was suspended last year when the EU noted improvements in Belarus' record.

Independent political analyst Alexander Klaskovsky said Lukashenko was emerging from years of isolation with the prize he sought.

"Whatever the nuances, this is a breakthrough for Lukashenko and for Belarussian diplomacy," he said. "The authorities have got what they were after for many years. The West has recognized that its policy of isolation was ineffective."

Belarus' disparate opposition said the EU was wrong to extend the invitation to the Prague summit.

"Europe will quickly understand that they are making a big mistake," said Alexander Kozulin, who ran against Lukashenko in 2006. "For 15 years, they called Lukashenko a dictator, so why have they now changed their mind?"

Kozulin was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison in 2006 on charges of hooliganism and inciting mass disorder for his role in protests after the election. His release from prison last year played a part in the EU's decision to soften its stance on Lukashenko.

(Reuters, MT)

Source:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/1010/42/376369.htm

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