VILNIUS--Belarus freed 52 prisoners including an EU employee on Thursday after an appeal from U.S. President Donald Trump, as Washington and Minsk flirted with a rapprochement that many European leaders have viewed sceptically.
Trump had previouslyurged Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to release detainees whom the U.S. leader has described as "hostages".
Trump has increased U.S. engagement with the authoritarian state, sending multiple delegations to Minsk this year. His predecessor, former President Joe Biden, sought to further isolate the eastern European nation after it served as a staging ground for Russia's 2022 expanded invasion of Ukraine.
In return for Lukashenko's gesture, Washington will grant sanctions relief to Belarus' national airline, Belavia, allowing it to service and buy components for its aircraft, which include Boeing airplanes, a White House official said.
It was the biggest batch of prisoners pardoned by the authoritarian leader, who is seeking to repair relations with the U.S. after years of isolation and sanctions.But it was far short of the 1,300 or 1,400 prisoners whose release Trump had called for in a conversation with Lukashenko last month and in subsequent social media posts.
Belarus's exiled opposition said one of the 52, Mikola Statkevich, had refused to enter Lithuania, where the released prisoners were brought. Webcam footage showed him sitting in the no-man's zone at the border, and Lithuania's border guard said he remained in Belarus.
It was not immediately clear why Statkevich, who ran against Lukashenko in a 2010 election, had refused to cross, but the exiled opposition says freed political prisoners should have the right to stay in Belarus rather than submit to what it says amount to forced deportations.
John Coale, who led the U.S. delegation to Minsk, told Reuters in an interview he hoped for the release of all those prisoners, adding that he believed Lukashenko wanted to change."But you don't change after you've been in office for some 30 years. It's not going to happen overnight," Coale added.
Coale was accompanied to Belarus by Christopher Smith, a deputy assistant security of state, according to a senior U.S. official.
Those released on Thursday included Ihar Losik, 33, a journalist sentenced in 2021 to 15 years in a penal colony on charges of inciting hatred and organising riots.Prominent critics of Lukashenko's decades-old rule, such as human rights campaigner Ales Bialiatski, co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, or Maria Kalesnikava, a leader of the 2020 pro-democracy protests, were not among those released.
