By Felix Light and Mark Trevelyan<\/p>\n
Dec 13 (Reuters) \u2013 The United States is lifting sanctions on Belarusian potash, President Donald Trump\u2019s envoy John Coale said on Saturday after two days of talks in Minsk with President Alexander Lukashenko.<\/p>\n
Coale, who has \u200dbeen tasked by Trump with negotiating the release of more than 1,000 political prisoners, described it as a good move for Belarus but did not say what Lukashenko had agreed to do in return.<\/p>\n
Belarus, a close ally of Russia, is a major producer of potash, a key component in fertiliser.<\/p>\n
\u201cPer the instructions of President Trump, we, the United States, will be lifting sanctions on potash,\u201d \u200cCoale was heard saying in video footage published by the Telegram \u200cchannel of Lukashenko\u2019s presidential administration.<\/p>\n
The U.S. and the European Union imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Belarus after Minsk launched a violent crackdown on protesters following a disputed election in 2020, jailing nearly all opponents of Lukashenko who did not flee abroad.<\/p>\n
Sanctions were tightened after Lukashenko allowed Belarus to \u200bserve as a staging ground for Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n
OPPOSITION OFFICIAL SEES NO POLICY CHANGE BY LUKASHENKO<\/p>\n
Reacting to the news that the U.S. sanctions on potash were \u200dbeing lifted, senior Belarusian opposition official Franak Viacorka \u200bsaid the EU sanctions on potash \u2013 which include a ban on exporting \u200bvia European ports \u2013 were more important that the U.S. sanctions.<\/p>\n
\u201cLukashenko has not changed his policy. \u200dRepression continues, and he continues to support Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine,\u201d Viacorka told Reuters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is why we must be extremely careful with any talk of easing sanctions \u2014 so that we do not end up strengthening Russia\u2019s war machine or rewarding ongoing repression.\u201d<\/p>\n
DISCUSSIONS ABOUT VENEZUELA<\/p>\n
State news agency Belta quoted Coale as saying he had discussed a wide range of \u200dissues with Lukashenko, including Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine and the situation in Venezuela.<\/p>\n
Lukashenko has held two recent meetings with a top Venezuelan diplomat and said that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom Trump \u200dis pressing to leave office, \u200dwould be welcome to come to Belarus.<\/p>\n
Coale said he believed \u200bLukashenko\u2019s closeness to Russian President Vladimir Putin could be useful in \u200bthe context \u2060of efforts to end the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour president has \u200ca long history with President Putin and has the ability to advise him. This is very useful in this situation. They are longtime friends and have the necessary level of relationship to discuss such issues,\u201d Coale said, according to Belta.<\/p>\n
\u201cNaturally, President Putin may accept some advice and not others. This is a way to facilitate the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Felix Light and Mark Trevelyan,Editing by Peter \u2060Graff and Timothy Heritage)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Felix Light and Mark Trevelyan Dec 13 (Reuters) \u2013 The United States is lifting sanctions on Belarusian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-346420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}