Belarus FM urges EU to lift sanctions against allegedly involved in abducting Lukashenka’s rivals


Belarus urges the European Union to lift the remaining restrictive measures, Belarusian Foreign Minister Uladzimir Makey said at the meeting with Ambassadors-at-Large for the Eastern Partnership representing the EU member states on Tuesday.

“We regret that in February the EU prolonged its restrictive measures against Belarus, which have long lost any practical rationale. To that and, we continue to call on the EU to lift the remaining restrictive measures,” state-run news agency BelTA quotes the minister.

According to him, it is the effective cooperation in the last years that has brought positive results, not than the previous two decades of sanctions.

Restrictive measures on the part of the EU towards Belarus were first introduced in 2004 in connection with the disappearances of four people – opposition politicians Yury Zakharanka and Viktar Hanchar, businessman Anatol Krasouski and journalist Dzmitry Zavadski. Personal sanctions were applied to the former Interior Minister Uladzimir Naumau, former head of the presidential administration Viktar Sheyman, Yury Sivakou, who occupied the post of the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs during the disappearance of politicians, and Dzmitry Paulichenka, commander of the special forces brigade of the Interior Ministry.

The Council later adopted further restrictive measures against those involved in the violation of international electoral standards and international human rights law, as well as in the crackdown on civil society and democratic opposition. In 2011, the European Union imposed an embargo on the supply of arms to Belarus.

In February 2016, the European Union lifted sanctions against the Belarusian leader and 169 officials. For years, Alyaksandr Lukashenka had been denied entry to EU member coutries. However, sanctions against Naumau, Sheyman, Sivakou and Paulichenko are still in force.

belsat.eu

 

TWITTER