(Reuters) – Belarus freed 52 prisoners including an EU employee on Thursday after an appeal from U.S. President Donald Trump, and they headed to Lithuania with the U.S. delegation that negotiated their release, the U.S. embassy in Vilnius said.
Trump had urged Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to release detainees whom the U.S. leader has described as “hostages”. Belarus later confirmed their release.
In return for Lukashenko’s gesture, Washington will grant sanctions relief to Belarus’ national airline Belavia, allowing it to service and buy components for its aircraft, which include Boeings, the U.S. embassy said.
BELARUS SEEKS TO REPAIR TIES WITH U.S.
It was the biggest batch of prisoners pardoned by the authoritarian leader, who is seeking to repair relations with the United States after years of isolation and sanctions on his former Soviet state.
But it was far short of the 1,300 or 1,400 prisoners whose release Trump had called for in a conversation with Lukashenko last month and in subsequent social media posts.
Belarus’s exiled opposition said one of the 52, Mikola Statkevich, had refused to enter Lithuania. Webcam footage showed him sitting in the no-man’s zone at the border, and Lithuania’s border guard said he remained in Belarus.
It was not immediately clear why Statkevich, who ran against Lukashenko in a 2010 election, had refused to cross but the exiled opposition says freed political prisoners should have the right to stay in Belarus rather than submit to what it says are in effect forced deportations.
John Coale, who led the U.S. delegation to Minsk, told Reuters in an interview he hoped for the release of all those prisoners, adding that he believed Lukashenko wanted to change.
“But you don’t change after you’ve been in office for some 30 years. It’s not going to happen overnight,” Coale added.
