UK minister meets Lukashenka, opposition figures in Minsk

Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Sir Alan James Carter Duncan has met with opposition figures in Minsk. The leaders of the Movement For Freedom (Yury Hubarevich), BPF Party (Alyaksei Yanukevich), Belarusian Party of the Left Fair World (Syarhei Kalyakin), organizing committee of the Belarusian Christian Democracy (Pavel Sevyarynets and Vital Rymasheuski) took part in the meeting, Radio Liberty reports. Tatstsyana Karatkevich represented Tell the Truth. MP Alena Anisim also attended the meeting.

The West should not stake on influencing Alyaksandr Lukashenka and the Belarusian society by means of a dialogue, Yanukevich said at the meeting. The work with the Belarusian public should be enhanced so that the democratic community of Belarus “would be ready to resist aggression coming from ‘the Russian world’” in case a fair election is held in our country, the opposition politician believes. The Minister ‘has apprehended the message’, the BPF Party leader thinks.

Before meeting the opposition, Alan Duncan also met with Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Minsk, Euroradio reported earlier. Lukashenka urged United Kingdom to invest more in Belarus. The President promised to teach the British minister to play ice hockey. Duncan told Belarusian Minister for Foreign Affairs Uladzimir Makei that he was satisfied with the resuts of the visit, which he is going to report to British PM Theresa May.