BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

Friday 22 April 2005

Russia-US row over Belarus

VILNIUS: Russia and the United States clashed over Belarus yesterday as Moscow's foreign minister rebuffed a call by the US Secretary of State for change in what she branded central Europe's "last true dictatorship." "I think the democratic process and the process of reform cannot be imposed from outside," Sergei Lavrov said of Belarus at a news conference in the Lithuanian capital during a meeting between Nato and Russia.

"We would not of course advocate what some people call "regime change" anywhere," he said, reacting to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's remark the previous day that Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko ran "the last true dictatorship in the centre of Europe," and that it was time for change.

But Rice insisted the US had a role to play in bringing democracy to former Soviet Belarus, and urged the world to monitor closely presidential elections there in 2006.

"The 2006 elections really do present an excellent opportunity for the international community to focus on the need for free and fair elections in Belarus," she told a news conference after Lavrov had made his comments.

"Elections have been an important catalyst in any number of countries now around the world," she added.

In the former Soviet Union alone, governments have been thrown out after rigging polls in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in recent months.

She said Washington would not intervene directly in Belarus to force change but could and should "shine a spotlight on places where people are still denied freedom."

"We can put that on the international agenda. We can insist on certain standards of behaviour by any government, any place in the world, including standards of behaviour when it comes to the holding of elections," she said.

Rice earlier met Belarussian opposition leaders to show support for democracy groups despite Russian concerns that Washington was interfering in its "near abroad".

Source:

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=110082&Sn=WORL&IssueID=28033