No sign of Europe’s readiness for dialogue after Poland’s overture, security chief says
Radosław Sikorski and Maksim Ryžankoŭ in New York on September 22
November 9, Pozirk. Europeans are showing no willingness for engagement, although Poland made a slight attempt at dialogue within the United Nations framework, Alaksandar Valfovič, state secretary of the Security Council, said in Moscow on Monday on the sidelines of a meeting of the security council chiefs of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
“We are not seeing any more progress for now,” Valfovič was quoted as saying by Belarusian state media. Belarus, for its part, is ready to engage with the West on the “stabilization of the situation in the region,” he said.
Both Minsk and Warsaw have recently signaled that they would like to improve their relations.
On September 22, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski met Belarusian Foreign Minister Maksim Ryžankoŭ on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, reportedly at the request of the Belarusian side.
Both expressed satisfaction with the meeting and hope that it would pave the way for the normalization of relations between the two countries. Sikorski welcomed the fact that Belarus had released imprisoned Polish minority activist Andrej Pačobut (Andrzej Poczobut), and that violations of the Polish border by irregular migrants and cigarette smugglers had stopped.
