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FM Ryžankoŭ: major EU countries showing renewed interest in Belarus
October 6, Pozirk. Belarusian Foreign Minister Maksim Ryžankoŭ has noted a “resurgence of interest in Belarus on the part of key European Union countries” in an interview with Russia’s RIA Novosti.
Over the past six years, these countries have been “hiding” from Minsk “in every corner, trying to save face politically,” the foreign ministry’s press office quoted the diplomat as saying.
The EU limited all contacts with Minsk after the 2020 political crisis in Belarus, which negatively affected cooperation at the border and on security issues, as well as trade, economic, political and even humanitarian spheres, Ryžankoŭ complained.
“In 2020, just as in 2022, it was easy to label the entire Belarusian leadership… but how do you get out of that afterwards? How do you explain to your voters why there was a policy of isolation for six years, and now you’re going to talk to these ‘servants of the dictator’?” the official noted. “Now they’re taking these steps. We’re not actually opposed to them.” Not all current contacts are public, he added.
“Our partners are very sensitive about these matters. They’re very afraid that someone will find out that we’ve met with someone,” the diplomat said.
Ryžankoŭ also recalled his recent high-level contacts on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, describing his meeting with Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski as “decisive.”
