Radoslaw Sikorski: Europe-Belarus ties dependent on Lukashenko's policy

PanARMENIAN.Net - Relations between Europe and Belarus will directly depend on Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko's policy toward the opposition, Polish Foreign Minister said.As Radoslaw Sikorski stated at Warsaw-hosted Eastern Partnership summit, “ongoing repressions render strengthening ties with EU and financial aid to Belarus impossible.”

“Poland will be the fist country to offer help to Belarus as soon as the country's authorities learn some respect for its citizens,” Sikorski stressed.

Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, in turn, noted that “Europe will assist Belarus on the way to democracy, unable to allow proliferation of dictatorship in the center of Europe.”

At the invitation of the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, and the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, the EU and the Eastern Partnership countries will meet in Warsaw on September 29 and 30.

President Van Rompuy will chair the meeting and together with the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso will represent the EU. The European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton, Commissioner in charge of Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy, Stefan Fule, and the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, will also attend.

The EU member states will also be represented at the highest level. The six partner countries will be represented by the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich and Moldovan Prime Minister Vladimir Filat and the Ambassador of Belarus in Warsaw.