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Of: TT
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Photo: Sergej Grits / AP / TT
Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya, who has been exiled, will meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Stock Photography.
Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya will travel to Berlin next week to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday and follows Tichanovskaya’s meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Vilnius earlier this week, where Macron is said to have promised to help negotiate with the Lukashenko regime in Belarus.
Tikhanovskaya and Merkel will also talk about “the situation in Belarus after the presidential elections,” according to Chancellor Ulrike Demmer.
Germany and France, as the EU in a united front, have condemned the results of the Belarusian elections on 9 August. Dictator Alexander Lukashenko was again named the winner of the elections and, in connection with the huge protests that broke out, the police force is reported to have committed a series of abuses against protesters. Thousands of people have been detained for more or less arbitrary reasons.
On Thursday, EU member states agreed to impose sanctions on some 40 members of the Lukashenko regime, people believed to have been involved in rigging the elections and ordering a violent crackdown on protesters. Belarus’ Foreign Ministry announces that the country will retaliate with similar sanctions against the EU.
Russia, guarantor of the Lukashenko regime in this context, is critical of the EU sanctions.
– It is more a manifestation of weakness than strength, says Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
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