Exclusive: No. 2 US diplomat to visit Russia, Lithuania to discuss Belarus

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The No. 2 U.S. diplomat will visit Russia and Lithuania shortly for talks on Belarus, two sources familiar with the matter said on Friday as Washington seeks a peaceful resolution following the election crisis. country withdrawing Russian intervention.

Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun’s planned mission signals a larger US role in trying to contain the strife that erupted when Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko brutally landed on peaceful Protestants his assertion of an August 9 election victory turn down.

Asked about Biegun’s planned trip, a State Department spokesman said “there is currently no trip to announce.”

One source, a former senior US official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that in the coming days Biegun would go to Moscow and the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, where Belarusian opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was fleeing after Lukashenko’s dismissal. .

The United States and European Union have condemned the election as marred by irregularities. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday urged Lukashenko to accept international assistance in opening talks with the opposition and implicitly warned Russia, the massive neighbor of Belarus, not to intervene.

Lukashenko has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to help rescue his 26-year-old son. Belarus is bound to Russia by a reciprocal defense agreement and deep economic, political and cultural ties.

Putin has provided assistance, if needed. Moscow said on Wednesday it did not see any need for action, but warned of outside involvement in Belarus and said the crisis should be addressed internally.

The second source said he did not know Biegun’s planned message but thought he would aim to prevent further violence in Belarus as well as Russian intervention.

“I would think that the Moscow administration is trying to discourage itself from intervening or use its influence with Lukashenko to encourage him to a (more) violent crackdown,” this source said, also on condition of anonymity.

EU member Lithuania, who has sought backing from Washington, has been a vocal critic of Lukashenko’s collapse in demonstrations by tens of thousands of Belarusians, in which his security forces beat, harassed and arrested thousands of people, many of whom say they were tortured.

Experts say Washington is seeking a bigger role in a search for a negotiated resolution to the crisis. The unrest sparked an American attempt to exploit tensions between Putin and Lukashenko, with Pompeo visiting Minsk in February for talks on normalizing diplomatic relations.

Protesters demand no closer ties with the West, experts say, but a reshuffle of the vote and respect for human rights, which Washington has a strong interest in promoting.

Moreover, the crisis gives Washington an issue to unite with European allies amid serious tensions over Iran’s nuclear deal and US President Donald Trump’s expressions of contempt for the trans-Atlantic alliance, they said.

“From the American perspective, there are a lot of problems in both human and democracy, but there is also a security component,” said Jonathan Katz, a former US official and expert on Eastern Europe with the German Marshall. Fund, a thinktank. “Belarus borders the Baltic allies and Poland.”

At the same time, he said, Washington wants to prevent Putin from giving an excuse to enter Belarus militarily, as he did in Ukraine in 2014, when Russian troops seized Crimea and supported separatists in the east. from the country to the oyster of a pro-Moscow government.

“There are concerns about the potential for Moscow to act militarily,” Katz said. “You can not reject it, even if you think the opportunity is not.”