BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

19/01/2007

Belarus: In Minsk, PACE President Calls For Democratic Change

MINSK, January 19, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The highest-ranking European diplomat to visit Belarus in years called today for democratic change and the release of political prisoners during a speech at Belarusian State University.

Rene van der Linden, the president of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), also met with government officials, opposition leaders, and the wife of a political prisoner in the course of a two-day trip that concluded today.

The top government official to meet with van der Linden was parliament speaker Vladimir Konoplyov.

Open To Discussion

But the PACE president did not rule out a potential future visit with the country's authoritarian president, Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

"This first visit is a visit between the speaker of parliament and the president of the Parliamentary Assembly, on the parliamentary level," van der Linden said. "I don't exclude, if we see real positive steps, that next time there will also be a meeting with the president."

Van der Linden was speaking today at a press conference in the Belarusian capital. He also called for an international fact-finding mission into what opposition leaders say is the country's growing ranks of political prisoners.

"I don't exclude, if we see real positive steps, that next time there will also be a meeting with the president." -- van der Linden

"Even if there is a dispute whether there are political prisoners or not, let's ask internat

Source:

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/01/51A681CC-5972-4587-B744-EBD241E75A93.html