VILNIUS: Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya on Monday urged French President Emmanuel Macron to mediate in the political crisis in her homeland, saying he could involve Russia in opening a dialogue.
Tikhanovskaya told AFP the EU should expand planned sanctions to include businesses that support the authoritarian government of President Alexander Lukashenko.
“The protests are not going to stop,“ she said in an interview in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius where she fled after running against Lukashenko in an election on Aug 9.
“People will not accept the regime under which they have lived all these years.”
She said she hoped to meet Macron during his two-day visit to Lithuania, which starts later on Monday.
The French president would be Tikhanovskaya’s most high-profile meeting so far since the disputed election and the weeks of unprecedented mass protests which she has helped inspire.
She has previously met leaders in neighbouring Poland and Lithuania, which have taken a lead in European diplomacy on Belarus, and with EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
She said the French leader was known as a mediator in international crises who could open a dialogue between the government and the opposition, and also involve Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“Now is the moment when Belarus needs help in starting dialogue,“ she said, adding that Macron could be “one of the mediators” in the crisis.
The EU is considering personal sanctions against Lukashenko and other high-profile figures seen as responsible for a violent crackdown.
But Tikhanovskaya said it could go further and adopt “economic sanctions against businesses, individual businessmen who support the Lukashenko regime”.
But she emphasised these should not be general economic sanctions as “ordinary people will suffer most” from them. — AFP
