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Pressure is strong to impose sanctions on senior Belarus officials: Polish FM

28.08.2020 18:41
Pressure is strong to quickly impose sanctions on senior Belarusian officials amid a crackdown on protestors in that country, Poland’s new foreign minister said on Friday after an informal meeting of his EU counterparts in Berlin.
Zbigniew Rau.
Zbigniew Rau. Photo: German Federal Foreign Office/Handout/Anadolu Agency/ABACAPRESS.COM

Poland’s Zbigniew Rau told reporters the diplomats were unanimous that "the constantly deteriorating situation in Belarus clearly requires a multifaceted response from the European Union."

"We are ready to draw up sanctions on the one hand, and this process has already started, and on the other an EU package for Belarusian society," he said.

Rau added that sanctions should ban senior Belarusian officials from entering European Union countries, and that “those who committed these shameful deeds” should be targeted in particular.

A series of massive demonstrations have swept Belarus this month to protest strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko's claim to a sixth term as president in an election widely dismissed as rigged.

Belarusian security forces have been criticised for brutality against protestors.

Lukashenko suggested on Friday that he might move to restrict the transit of Western goods if sanctions are imposed on his country.

He warned that he would show Poland and Lithuania "what sanctions are," Polish state news agency PAP reported.

The two-day meeting of EU foreign ministers in Berlin, which started on Thursday, marked Rau’s first foreign trip following his appointment as Poland’s top diplomat.

(pk)

Source: PAP