BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

06/10/2008

"Time to Turn the Page" on Ties With Belarus - OSCE

The EU and the US have repeatedly accused Lukashenko of rigging elections, jailing opponents and stifling independent media.

The time has come to thaw relations between Europe and Belarus, the chairman of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said on Tuesday on a rare visit to the ex-Soviet state by a senior Western official.

Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb was meeting President Alexander Lukashenko a week after a parliamentary election judged by the OSCE to have marked an improvement on previous polls but still fallen short of international norms.

Belarus has been isolated from the West for over a decade. The European Union and the United States accused Lukashenko of rigging elections, jailing opponents and stifling media freedom.

"My message is clear -- it is time to turn the page in Belarussian-European relations," Stubb told Lukashenko. "There is a clear mood that Belarus is moving in the right direction."

Both the United States and EU have imposed financial sanctions and a travel ban on Lukashenko and 40 officials. EU officials said before the election that some punitive measures could be eased if the poll went well.

Stubb told reporters that EU foreign ministers would discuss the future of sanctions against Belarus at a meeting in Luxembourg next Monday, to which Belarussian Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov has been invited.

He said after the talks there were "still many open questions -- visa limits and a travel ban are two of them."

"It is time to start looking at Belarus's role in the international community," Stubb told a news conference. "I never believed in isolation, I believed in cooperation."

IMPROVED ELECTION

The OSCE said the campaign and poll were generally well conducted, but criticised the vote count. Not a single opposition candidate won a seat in the new parliament.

"Surely no one can deny that there has been an improvement from the 2004 to the 2008 election," Stubb said.

Stubb later met members of Belarus' liberal and nationalist opposition and reacted positively to a suggestion by one of them, Communist leader Sergei Kalyakin, to suspend sanctions for a time to persuade authorities to proceed with democratic change.

"I think that would be an excellent message to take to the (EU) meeting on Monday and could affect the decision of the foreign ministers," he said.

Some opposition figures were critical of Tuesday's talks.

"Today's meeting with Lukashenko was no help to democracy," said Social Democrat Nikolai Statkevich. "Today you helped the Lukashenko regime."

In what were clearly friendly talks, Lukashenko and Stubb chatted about ice hockey, the national game of both their countries. "This visit is a serious signal first of all to Europe that you must talk with Belarus," Lukashenko told Stubb. "If the European Union takes two steps, we will take five."

Lukashenko has sought better relations with the West after a row last year with traditional ally Russia over energy prices.

He is maintaining a balancing act between Moscow and the 27-member EU, while making clear this week that he does not plan to take his country out of Russia's orbit.

Source:

http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=189873

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