BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

14/10/2008

EU suspends travel ban on Lukashenko

By Tony Barber in Luxembourg

The European Union on Monday suspended a travel ban on Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, as part of an initiative to promote closer ties with former Soviet republics after Russia's invasion of Georgia.

EU foreign ministers announced the move at a meeting where they also dropped most sanctions against Uzbekistan and promised to negotiate a comprehensive free trade accord with Moldova.

But the ministers deferred a decision on resuming talks with Russia on a long-term partnership agreement in response to the partial withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia.

The suspension of the travel ban on Mr Lukashenko and dozens of other officials applies for six months. It is the EU's first concrete step towards unfreezing relations with Belarus since it blacklisted the president in 2006 for allegedly rigging his re-election.

The EU has looked for ways to reward the government in Minsk since August, when it freed Alexander Kozulin, Andrei Kim and Sergei Parsyukevich, the last remaining political opponents of Mr Lukashenko who were still in prison.

Some EU members have also been concerned about the Kremlin's efforts to deepen its influence over Minsk, including plans for a joint missile defence base on Belarusan territory that could be built in response to the proposed US missile defence base in Poland.

But Russia's assault on Georgia and its recognition of the independence of the pro-Moscow enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia focused the EU's attention on the need to support former Soviet states lying beyond the bloc's eastern border.

The suspension of the travel ban does not apply to those involved in the unexplained "disappearances" of government opponents in 1999-2000 or to the president of the national election commission, who is excluded because the EU was dissatisfied with the fairness of last month's parliamentary elections in Belarus.

Sweden and the UK are among the EU countries most reluctant to restart the talks on the partnership accord with Russia immediately. They want to wait until governments in the Union have studied a detailed review of EU-Russian relations that the European Commission will release early next month.

EU leaders agreed on September 1 to postpone the talks until Russian forces withdrew to positions occupied before clashes erupted in Georgia on August 7.

Carl Bildt, Sweden's foreign minister, said: "If you look at the map, they aren't in the positions they had prior to August 7.

"They have made the withdrawal primarily from the buffer zones, but there are areas they are occupying now where they were not on August 7."

Diplomats said the EU might agree to restart the talks with Moscow in time for a scheduled EU-Russia summit on November 14.

Source:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6dcd465e-9975-11dd-9d48-000077b07658.html

Google
 


Partners:
Face.by Social Network
Face.by