The United States is thinking about cooperation with Lukashenko
Julie Fischer, who was appointed US Ambassador to Minsk at the end of last year but has not yet presented her credentials to President Alexander Lukashenko, is still wondering whether she can cooperate with him.
She stated this in an interview with the Polish television channel Belsat, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“The question of how we can cooperate with Lukashenko at this stage is very difficult, and we are thinking about it... One of the topics that we recently discussed was the stability of a government that does not recognize its people, does not participate in a conversation with them and does not works for the benefit of the citizens of his country. “I continue to question the viability of a government that so blatantly ignores both the will of its own people and the norms of the international community,” Fischer said.
At the same time, she assured that the United States will always support “the people of Belarus,” apparently referring to political emigration in Vilnius and Warsaw, where the diplomat has been living for the last six months.
“We will continue to support the people of Belarus and we will continue to respond to these adjustments, changes and tactics that Lukashenko is using... It is obvious that the West must respond in a language that Lukashenko is able to understand: we will not tolerate these types of actions, we will not tolerate his tools repressions were launched in Europe and outside Belarus. We also reject the use of these tools inside Belarus. Therefore, we are now reviewing all the tools we have. And we are going to do this together with our European partners,” Fischer said.
Sitting in Warsaw, she intends to “focus on the problem of political prisoners in Belarus and the need to stop violence,” as well as new elections in her destination country. Fischer also intends to continue to “look for any opportunity for interaction” with the self-proclaimed leader of the Belarusian people Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and other fugitive oppositionists.
She also believes that it is possible to discuss the problems of Belarus “without a dominant factor in the form of Moscow,” although Russia “has the opportunity to react, there is the opportunity to play a constructive role.”
This position of the “remote” US ambassador causes irritation in the Belarusian Foreign Ministry.
“The US Ambassador, before starting work in Minsk, should have thought about what baggage she is coming here with or should come with. She met with everyone, made a huge number of negative statements regarding Belarus and its leadership, and after that she expects us to accept her with open arms?” said Vladimir Makei, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, in an interview with Kommersant.
At the same time, he avoided answering the question of whether Lukashenko would accept Fisher’s credentials, emphasizing that Belarus is interested in normal relations in the United States.
Before her appointment in Minsk, Fisher worked at the US embassies in Tbilisi under President Saakashvili and in Kyiv under President Yushchenko. She was Chargé d'Affaires of the United States in Russia.
Minsk recalled its ambassador to America in 2008 after the United States imposed sanctions against Belarus in response to Minsk’s refusal to release oppositionist and ex-presidential candidate Alexander Kazulin from the colony. At the same time, the head of the American diplomatic mission in Belarus, Karen Stewart, was asked to leave the country.
In April 2019, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei officially informed the US State Department George Kent about the lifting of restrictions on the number of embassy employees in Minsk.
The US is considering cooperation with Lukashenko.