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Polish president, Belarus opposition leader to meet in Warsaw

09.12.2021 08:30
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda is on Thursday expected to meet with the leader of the Belarusian opposition, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the state PAP news agency reported.
Polish President Andrzej Duda (L) is on Thursday scheduled to host Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (R), at the presidential palace in Warsaw.
Polish President Andrzej Duda (L) is on Thursday scheduled to host Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (R), at the presidential palace in Warsaw. PAP/Mateusz Marek

Ahead of the meeting, which is due to take place in the early afternoon at the presidential palace in Warsaw, Duda’s foreign policy aide Jakub Kumoch said: “We regard Tsikhanouskaya as someone who is speaking on behalf of the Belarusian people.”

Describing Tsikhanouskaia as “the leader of the democratic forces in Belarus,” Kumoch added: “We appreciate the fact that during Alexander Lukashenko’s hybrid operation, the whole Belarusian opposition maintained solidarity with Poland and told the world in clear terms that the responsibility for the border crisis lies solely with the dictator.”

“For our part, we said clearly that Poland was in dispute with Lukashenko, not with the Belarusian people,” Kumoch told reporters. 

Summit for Democracy

Kumoch said that later in the day Duda would discuss the situation in Belarus and Polish support for democratic forces there at a virtual Summit for Democracy convened by the administration in Washington.

“Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaia is also going to be a guest at the summit, and she will speak about how to combat authoritarian regimes, from Warsaw,” Kumoch told reporters.

“It’s symbolic that the leader of a democratic Belarus will be speaking from a country which has helped tens of thousands of Belarusian refugees and which is supporting the opposition in its struggle for a nation’s basic right to choose its own leader,” he added.

After the summit, at 6:30 p.m., the Polish president and First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda will host a Christmas meeting with Tsikhanouskaia and members of Poland’s Belarusian diaspora at the Belweder Palace in Warsaw, Kumoch said.

(pm/gs)

Source: IAR, PAP