The Belarusian government released 52 political prisoners of various nationalities on Thursday. Meanwhile, they arrived in neighboring Lithuania, accompanied by an American delegation led by President Donald Trump’s ambassador John Coale, who was negotiating their release. TASR reports on this on the basis of Reuters and Belta reports.
The Belarusian state news agency Belta said that there are 14 foreigners, six of them, two of them Lithuania citizens, two citizens of Latvia, two Poles, two Germans and one citizen of France and Britain.
This is the largest group of prisoners so far, whose authoritarian ruling President Alexandr Lukashenko Pardy, says Reuters. However, it is incomparably less than 1300-1400 prisoners whose release Trump demanded in a recent call with the Belarusian President and announced in subsequent contributions on social networks.
He was afraid of war
At present, nearly 1,200 officially recognized political prisoners are in Belarus, but their actual number is higher.
On 22 August, Lukashenko said he was not ready to release “bandits” who could “wage war” against the state.
According to Belta Lukashenko, the US diplomat informed at the meeting before the release of prisoners that the United States wanted to reopen its embassy in Minsk and that Washington abolished sanctions against the Belarus National Aeronautics Belavia.
Relationships are good
Coale described his meeting with Lukashenko as extremely productive. He described the current relations between Belarus and the United States as good, but they may be better.
“The primary goal of our cooperation is to normalize bilateral relations between Belarus and the United States. This means taking all possible steps to deepen and strengthen our economic and political cooperation,” Belta Coalea quotes.
Coale handed over to Lukashenko’s letter from Trump in English signed by the familial “Donald” and cufflinks with a white house depicting. Lukashenko appreciated Trump’s efforts to reach a peace agreement in the war between Ukraine and Russia.
