"The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, freed 123 prisoners on Saturday, including Nobel peace prize winner Ales Bialiatski and leading opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava, after the US lifted sanctions on Belarusian potash, a key export. The announcement came after two days of talks with an envoy of the US president, Donald Trump, the latest diplomatic push since the Trump administration started talks with the autocratic leader."
"A close ally of Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, Minsk is largely isolated from European and other western states due to its poor human rights record and brutal crackdown on popular protests. The gradual detente is part of what US officials told Reuters was an attempt to pull him from Putin's sphere of influence, an initiative about which Belarusian opposition has expressed doubts."
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko freed 123 prisoners, including Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski and opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava. The releases followed the lifting of US sanctions on Belarusian potash after two days of talks with a US presidential envoy. The prisoner release was the largest since talks began and is part of a broader rapprochement with western countries. Belarus remains a close ally of Russia and President Vladimir Putin but is largely isolated from Europe and other western states because of a poor human rights record and a brutal crackdown on protests. Human rights groups say many prisoners' health declined due to mistreatment.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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