Envoy row forgotten: Lukashenka thanks EU delegation head for 'dialogue' and ‘silence’


Belarusian president Alyaksandr Lukashenka praised the contribution of Maira Mora to the improvement of relations between Belarus and the European Union, state-run news agency BelTA reports.

“You have done a lot to promote dialogue with the big Europe, help us understand each other better and improve our relations,” Lukashenka said at Monday’s meeting with Maira in connection with the expiry of her diplomatic mission in Belarus.

Read also:Modernization should be undertaken first by Belarusians – Mora

“We know that you have done a lot of things sincerely, and when you were not able to do anything you remained silent, and we understood your silence,” the Belarusian leader stressed.

According to Lukashenka, he does not meet with all ambassadors whose diplomatic missions in Belarus expire, and this meeting ‘speaks for itself’.

“Our country honors the person who has been committed to the improvement of our relations rather than the worsening of them as it happens sometimes,” the head of state said. “An ambassador should work to mend things, to unite rather than tear them apart and separate,” Lukashenka said.

Mrs Mora will always be a dear guest in Belarus, he added.

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Although the Belarusian president is unwelcome in the European Union, Maira Mora has never been a consistent critic of Lukashenka’s regime. “Belarusians, you are peaceful people. Support your president so that there will be no more war in your neighbouring country,” she said in September, 2014 in a Belarusian TV talk show devoted to the Ukrainian events.

During Mora’s office, Belarus and the bloc experienced another wave of deterioration of their mutual relations. After EU foreign ministers agreed an assets freeze and visa ban against 19 magistrates and two highly placed police officers who are suspected of stifling Belarus’ political opposition, Head of the EU delegation to Belarus Maira Mora and Leszek Szerepka, the Polish Ambassador to Belarus, were invited to the Belarusian MFA.

 “Head of the EU Delegation to the Republic of Belarus and Ambassador of Poland to Belarus have also received the recommendations to return to their capitals for consultations and to convey to their leadership a firm position of the Belarusian Side on inadmissibility of pressure and sanctions,” the statement said.

EU member countries’ ambassadors in Minsk were withdrawn in solidarity.

Two months later, in April 2012,  the diplomats came back and commenced their duties. Aliaksandr Lukashenka could not help taking advantage of the situation and told journalists that the European Union had ‘recognized the futility of sanctions against Belarus’.

www.belsat.eu/en/

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