- Nineteen prisoners use cutlery to break out of cells at Winchester prison
- France wants progress in Ukraine before Russia returns to G7
- Italy president begins talks to seek way out of government crisis
- Italian PM expected to resign as political chaos deepens
- Russia says US cruise missile test ‘regrettable’
- Kremlin - No date set for Normandy talks on Ukraine despite Macron meeting
- Egypt court hands out 6 death sentences on terror charges
- Putin says Russian nuclear explosion poses no threat
- Russian panel eyes alleged foreign interference in protests
- Gran Canaria wildfire triggers evacuation of thousands of people
- PM Johnson calls on Germany and France to compromise on Brexit
- Sudan's ex-president Bashir arrives at corruption trial
Tuesday, 29 September 2020 (YJC)_ Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya will meet French President Immanuel Macron in Lithuania on Tuesday.
Emmanuel Macron will meet Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Lithuania on Tuesday, the Élysée Palace said in a statement, after she asked the French president to help mediate the crisis that has gripped the country since the controversial reelection of President Alexander Lukashenko.
Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya on Monday urged French President Emmanuel Macron to mediate in the political crisis in her homeland, saying he could involve Russia in opening a dialogue.
Tikhanovskaya told AFP the EU should expand planned sanctions to include businesses that support the authoritarian government of President Alexander Lukashenko.
"The protests are not going to stop," she said in an interview in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, where she fled after unsuccessfully challenging Lukashenko in an August 9 election.
"People will not accept the regime under which they have lived all these years."
The French president will be Tikhanovskaya's most high-profile meeting so far since the disputed election and the weeks of unprecedented mass protests that she has helped inspire.
She has previously met leaders in neighbouring Poland and Lithuania, which have taken a lead in European diplomacy on Belarus, and with EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
She said the French leader was known as a mediator in international crises who could open a dialogue between the government and the opposition, and also involve Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
"Now is the moment when Belarus needs help in starting dialogue," she said, adding that Macron could be "one of the mediators" in the crisis.
In an interview published yesterday with the Journal du dimanche (Sunday Journal), Macron said Lukashenko should agree to leave power.
“It is clear that Lukashenko must go,” he said.
During a visit to Lithuania that began on Monday, Macron and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda agreed that the European Union should decide on sanctions against Belarus at the summit of the bloc's leaders later this week.
The EU has been considering sanctions against Lukashenko and other high-profile figures seen as responsible for a violent crackdown of months of protest in Belarus.
Source: France 24
Your Comment