BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

28/04/2006

NATO, Russia disagree over Belarus

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - NATO and Russia disagreed Friday on events in Belarus where the jailing of a leading opposition politician has drawn strong protests from Western nations.

"We definitely do not see eye-to-eye" on Belarus, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Alexander Milinkevich, who has spearheaded the wave of unprecedented protests against the authoritarian government of President Alexander Lukashenko was sentenced to 15 days in jail along with other opposition leaders after a protest rally Wednesday.

Lavrov said Western efforts to isolate Lukashenko's regime were "counterproductive" and "not something we agree with or approve of."

The Russian minister regularly meets his counterparts from the 26 NATO allies at the end of their twice-yearly meetings as part of a cooperation agreement. The agreed to work more closely in areas such as counterterrorism, tackling the smuggling of narcotics out of Afghanistan and air space management.

However traditional disagreements remained over NATO's discussions with Ukraine and Georgia on their requests to join the alliance and changes to a Cold War era arms control treaty which NATO nations have yet to ratify.

Pro-Western governments in Ukraine and Georgia have sought to emulate the formerly Soviet-ruled Baltic states - Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania - who joined NATO in 2004. In contrast, Lukashenko has alienated the West and maintains close ties to Moscow.

Source:

http://www.kyivpost.com/bn/24374/

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