A travel ban on Belarusian top officials is likely to be enforced both by the US and the EU unless President Alexander Lukashenko quickly frees the political prisoners rounded up after elections last month, a senior US official stopping in Brussels on his way to Minsk has said.
Valentina Pop, EUOBSERVER/ BRUSSELS
"Both the EU and ourselves want to keep our postures on Belarus harmonised. But we’re not going to make announcements on the same day," Thomas Melia, a diplomat working on democracy and human rights issues in the US State Department told Brussels-based journalists at a meeting on Wednesday (19 January).
Mr Melia made a pit-stop in the EU capital and liaised with senior officials in the newly-created European External Action Service before his visit to Kiev and Minsk later this week, in what he described a "regular exercise" of US and EU officials co-ordinating their positions in respect to democracy issues in post-Communist countries.
"Definitely one of the things we are looking at is a travel ban on officials in the Belarus government – technically what steps are going to be taken in that direction will be decided in the next few days," he said.
While avoiding the term "ultimatum", he said his message to Belarusian officials will be that they still have time to avoid sanctions if they release the "scores of people still in detention, at a minimum."
"The door is not closed yet, but it is closing. Decisions will be taken in Washington and Brussels in the next couple of weeks," Mr Melia noted.
On the subject of whether Belarus should be excluded from the Eastern Partnership, the EU’s basket of projects for ex-Soviet neighbours, he said this would be "entirely a European decision", with Washington set to "respect" whatever choice the EU makes.
"The government of Belarus seems to be inviting its own isolation with its actions of last month," he added.
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